United Kingdom BBC NOW – NOW!: Jörgen van Rijen (trombone), BBC Nationwide Orchestra of Wales / Jordan de Souza (conductor). Hoddinott Corridor, Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 26.1.2024. (PCG)
Gavin Higgins – Sarabande (world première)
James MacMillan – Her tears fell with the dews at even (UK première)
Ross Edwards – Chorale and Ecstatic Dance (UK première)
Anna Whitcombe – And the skies grew to become vermilion
Tan Dun – Trombone Concerto ‘Three Muses in Video Sport’ (UK première)
Let me first thank the BBC administration within the matter of the broadside in my assessment of the live performance two weeks in the past. They made it occur: a printed programme for the viewers at this really ground-breaking live performance, described as ‘accessible for these with out smartphones’. I stay sceptical concerning the notion that digital programmes resolve budgetary constraints on productions in standard codecs. One ought to severely discourage something which entices an viewers to change on digital units throughout a live performance. The web programmes accessible for print earlier than the live performance are additionally extravagant and cumbersome (twenty full-colour A4 pages, together with 4 pages of undesirable pre-publicity for forthcoming concert events). The return of the old-style A5 programmes is welcome for audiences – and for the composers of works which is able to inevitably be new to most listeners.
One last-minute inclusion was additionally welcome: Anna Whitcombe’s And the skies grew to become vermilion, beforehand heard on the concluding live performance of the 2023 ‘Composition: Wales’ occasion. I had complained that items premièred at these annual workshops tended to fade after preliminary appearances. It was good, then, that one in all them emerged in a later programme. The 2024 occasion seems to have been a sufferer of BBC economies, one hopes solely a brief measure, so it was in some methods additionally a comfort prize. This pleasant miniature combines components of pastoral and impressionist vignettes. The efficiency right here seemed to be even higher than earlier than. There was extra sustained lyricism within the passages which describe a rural sundown.
Comparable in fashion was Gavin Higgins’s Sarabande, right here receiving its first efficiency. Once more, it combines impressionism with a contemplation of nature; that considerably belies the formal dance construction the title implies. This good-looking piece in ternary kind builds to an excited climax earlier than a magical conclusion with very efficient use of the col legno tratto approach: the strings are performed concurrently with the hair and the wooden of the bow. That may sound bizarre (as in Mahler’s First Symphony), however right here it made for a gorgeous etiolated ambiance.
It was not clear why Sir James MacMillan’s Her tears fell with the dews at even written in 2020 needed to wait over three years for its UK première, nevertheless it was nicely definitely worth the wait. The title derives from Tennyson’s early narrative poem Mariana, however the music doesn’t look like programmatic. There solely is a normal temper of lamentation which revolves round a concertante solo flute throughout the orchestra, fantastically performed right here by Matthew Featherstone. Out of the virtually hesitant introduction the flute emerges, step by step joined by the opposite woodwind devices earlier than a hefty brass interruption which the composer in his programme notice described as a ‘primeval fanfare’. This may all sound dangerously sectional and fragmentary, however in reality the unity of temper is fantastically nicely sustained. In a really stunning central part, a unison lyrical melody unfolds within the strings over and thru a fragile material of interweaving strains. The conclusion is gorgeous, too. The initially excited flute at first challenges the remainder of the orchestra and slowly subsides into quiet resignation. One would willingly stay up for listening to the work once more. I’ve little doubt that the chance will rapidly be forthcoming.
The efficiency of the Chorale and Ecstatic Dance, mounted to have a good time Ross Edwards’s eightieth birthday final yr, has needed to wait thirty years for its UK premiere! It’s one other absolute thriller why this could have been. One thinks that Traditional FM would have taken up the reason for this music enthusiastically, at the very least within the days after they had been prepared to help adventurous new works by such composers as Górecki and Pärt.
The piece includes two initially impartial actions which do probably not have something very a lot in frequent however make an oddly contrasted diptych. The Chorale for strings alone has components of Pärt in its nonetheless quiet contemplation, relatively than the extra emotional palette of Barber or Vaughan Williams. A nearer parallel could possibly be discovered within the music of Alan Hovhaness, with its mixture of modalism and south-east Asian coloration. This piece might certainly problem the recognition of a piece like Skempton’s Lento. It was no shock to be taught from the programme that the Ecstatic Dance is one in all Edwards’s ‘hottest compositions’. A pleasant spring in its step remembers most of the finest components in mild music, whereas exhibiting a contrapuntal syncopation that regularly manages to sidestep any suspicion of cliché. There have been components of Walton right here, but in addition reminders of Edwards’s iconoclastic Australian predecessor Percy Grainger, and a few quixotic percussion additions which actually betrayed Asian influences. The orchestra clearly completely loved themselves.
So that they did too in Tan Dun’s 2021 concerto for trombone. That was described within the advance publicity as a UK premiere, however the programme asserted it was a world premiere. Tan Dun wrote the concerto, in any occasion, particularly for the soloist right here, the Dutch trombonist Jöegen van Rijen. He actually made a meal of the often-humorous writing equipped to him. It was replete not solely with the usual ‘trombone raspberries’ within the form of glissandi (and acquainted from composers way back to Nielsen and Bartók) however some decidedly lavatorial flutter-tonguing and different strategies which emphasised the clown-like nature of the instrument. The entire temper of the concerto was light-hearted, and even the lyrical central motion had a sure insouciance which hardly rippled the floor of the music. The online game ingredient was positively current, however downplayed had been the weather of orientalism and severity which have distinguished Tan Dun’s music up to now. On the similar time, this can be a work which calls for consideration – and additional performances.
The taking part in all through the live performance was excellent. The younger Jordan de Souza clearly relished the chance to liven up this new music. It was only a disgrace that the studio viewers was small – lower than half the capability of the not-too-large auditorium. There may be all the time a hazard that new compositions turn into relegated to a type of ghetto, so the music is performed to a small coterie of fanatics after which by no means heard once more. However there was adequate selection right here to fulfill essentially the most fastidious palette, and many which was not solely approachable however pleasurable on first listening to. It seems from the programme that the published relay will probably be break up between BBC 3 afternoon concert events and their New Music Present. That will nicely imply that these might should hold their eyes peeled on the schedules. I hope that Jordan de Souza, too, will return quickly with some extra standard fare.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
