Showing posts with label Saffron Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saffron Hall. Show all posts

Sunday 21 February 2016

The best of duo partners (Part II) : The music is almost an excuse to hear them play

Part II of a review of Maxim Vengerov in Recital, with pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 February

This is Part II of a review of Maxim Vengerov in Recital, which he gave with pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, on Saturday 20 February at 7.30 p.m.


After a dark concert-suit in the first part of the concert (to a review of which this links), a change of repertoire and ambience was signalled by a change of suit for Maxim Vengerov, a grey lounge suit with a black collar



Programme (Part II) :

 3. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) ~ Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2

 4. Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) ~ Violin Sonata No. 6

 5. Wilhelm Ernst (1812-1865) ~ The Last Rose of Summer

 6. Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) (arr. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)) ~ Theme and Variations on ‘I Palpiti’





Ravel ~ Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, in G Major (1923-1927), M. 77

 1. Allegretto
2. Blues. Moderato
3. Perpetuum mobile. Allegro


The Sonata's opening Allegretto, from which the central movement is often detached (please see below), felt full of mystery and allusiveness : maybe there was birdsong in the discords, maybe car-horns (tying in with apparently invoking Gershwin in the last movement ?), but resolving into harmonies. From composer and performers, a sense of conjuring something into existence with this sound-world…


The central movement is often heard outside its place in the whole work – typically with great relish of the passage with that bluesy ‘bent’ note (if to the exclusion of much else ?). After extreme pizzicato gestures to begin with, Maxim Vengerov was then rightly relatively restrained with that familiar passage :

One can only appreciate what has been singled out to be known by accepting it to be so, when fitting it back into its musical context. Afterwards, as the piano ‘muses’, he used very much more gentle pizzicato to bring in subtle timbres, and, when it came to the often unacknowledged sub-theme, carefully accented it to bring the line of melody within it out to us. A little more pizzicato, this time with intensity, came before Ravel’s quiet, and somewhat moody close.


In the final movement, the Ravel of Gaspard de la nuit (1908), especially ‘Scarbo’ (its third movement), seemed evident here : the exactly terrifying effect of a moto perpetuo when put alongside the edginess of his piano-writing.


Remission came in the form of overtly jazzy piano (from which we might infer - wrongly¹ - that Ravel is quoting George Gershwin, in An American in Paris), and the violin skating above it, only to return to the anxiety of the moto perpetuo against chords from Saïtkoulov. A recurrence of that jazz-infused material then relieved us - now, the parts of piano and violin came to us in a more integrated form (and, although finishing the piece with the gesture of a closing cadence, Ravel seemed to do so without a harmonic resolution ?).



Ysaÿe ~ Violin Sonata No. 6, in E Major (1923), Op. 27


Eugène Ysaÿe


This solo work seemed to have - as the first encore was likewise to suggest - a Neapolitan character to it (and perhaps, near the end, even a reference to Carmen ?) : now playing alone, Vengerov’s virtuosity and ease of playing were being exploited, and tested.

However, amongst all that was going on and being asked of him, everything proved - played with this level of skill and insight - to be part of the whole. The adornments and extras were there, not for themselves, but in the service of lyricism, and of the music’s emotional content.



Ernst The Last Rose of Summer² (Étude No. 6) (1864) : Introduction, Theme, Four Variations, and Finale

After an introduction, we would have recognized the theme, complete with left-handed pizzicato. By 1846, the status of the song ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ had been established for decades (since Beethoven had used it twice, the first time in Irish Songs (1816), Vol. 2, WoO 153)². As the work progressed, we could hear how a variation would go away from, and come back to, home – or of the theme’s expressive enhancement (if almost to disintegration ?).


Given its popularity, then and now, it was illuminating to hear the theme so variously treated, with, after a ‘straight’ form of variation, next more left-handed pizzicato, but performed as a kind of ‘twang’, almost as if to undermine a serious bowed line. (Some other effects were read as comic, rather than in the nature of further challenging technique, with a number in the audience actually laughing – not that smiles or laughter are to be banished at the door of the concert-hall, but it was unclear that what we heard was meant to be taken that way.)



Paganini (arr. Kreisler) ~ Theme and Variations on ‘I Palpiti’ (1819), Op. 13 (arr. publ. 1905)

 Again, a piece in variation form, but, coming from a celebrated violinist, it seemed employed to the end of conveying character through, rather than in, the chosen matter, and with the relative simplicity of the part for piano. The balance of the piece, and of the performer, was between the elements of ornamentation and bringing out its qualities of expression, and Kreisler’s importance and memory were clearly close to Vengerov’s heart (not just because the first two encores were by Kreisler, but in his approach and playing).


Fritz Kreisler, with his dog, in October 1930


Encores :

 (1) The Caprice viennois, Op. 2, was given to feel and be reverential of Kreisler, but in a dreamy, if also matter-of-fact, way [Kreisler seems, judging by this recording from around 1942, to have chosen to play it with orchestra].

 By contrast, in Kreisler’s (2) Tambourin Chinois³, Op. 3, Vengerov was obviously enjoying himself, with its pentatonic taps or fast bow-strokes. Yet, even more so, the tempo of the slower, central section – with its richness of tone, it was reminiscent of moments in the Ravel.



In retrospect, it was a shame not to have started a ripple of applause to second the sentiment that Maxim Vengerov wished that there could be more concert-halls like Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW).


Finally, a very well-known piece, (3) the ‘Méditation’ from Massenet’s opera Thaïs (where it originally served as an intermezzo) : Vengerov is a great player, but there was not a sense of ego here, but of loving the music, and loving playing it. As earlier in the recital (e.g. with the Ravel), what was well judged was in seeing what is lovely about it – the depths of expression, rather than exploiting it for its familiar capacity to move to tears.

Here, the concert concluded (as signalled by the duo coming back to the stage violinless) : in any case, one would not have wanted anything else to follow this choice. Many of the audience who had not already stood took the opportunity to do so, and take one last curtain-call with these performers.




The link here is to the review of Part I of the concert


End-notes

¹ I.e. that when, in 1928, Gershwin composed An American in Paris (after his second trip to Paris), he was the one paying tribute. It is a story often told that Gershwin and Ravel were in correspondence (before Gershwin's first visit, in 1926), because Gershwin wanted to take lessons in composition from him. When, however, Ravel saw what the other was earning as a composer, he joked that he should be taking lessons from Gershwin.

On meeting Gershwin in 1926, Ravel did not find himself able to teach him, and suggested Nadia Boulanger as a teacher. (Gershwin was not to meet her until the second trip : almost as famously, she urged on him that, true to himself, he was already a first-rate Gershwin, and should not try to become a second-rate [version of] Ravel.) In between, Gershwin helped persuade Ravel to make a lucrative concert-tour to the States, and the further contact between the men led to Ravel's making a generous commendation of Gershwin to Boulanger.

² The traditional tune ‘Aislean an Oigfear’ (‘The Young Man's Dream’) had been transcribed in 1792 (by Edward Bunting). The poet Thomas Moore then not only set words to it (i.e. his poem ‘The Last Rose of Summer’), but published Bunting’s transcription (in A Selection of Irish Melodies (1813), Vol. 5).

 What one finds is that Ernst was by no means alone in finding it an attractive musical subject : we may well know of Britten’s arrangement, but, in the intervening two centuries, it has proved one to dozens of other composers, amongst them Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Kuhlau, Glinka, Gounod, Reger, and Hindemith.

³ Vengerov announced it as a second Caprice by Kreisler, setting one’s heart racing at the idea that he might, as Kreisler did, have passed off one of his works as that of another…




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Sunday 20 December 2015

Gems and jewels : The Sixteen at Advent

This is a review of a concert given by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 December

This is a review of a concert, with a programme entitled The Virgin Mother and Child, given by The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, at Saffron Hall on Sunday 20 December at 7.30 p.m.

Those at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHall) who had heard The Sixteen (@TheSixteen) during one of their Choral Pilgrimages* might not have been expecting two things from the programme (even if they had, in passing and without much thought, noted that amongst what it was to include was John Tavener’s The Lamb) : the pieces were, by and large, not lengthy (the ones that took longest to perform were still probably little more than around ten minutes), and they ranged from plainsong to the work of living British composers (such as Howard Skempton and Alec Roth).

Although, for balance, some of the singers did move around at times, usually the six sopranos were in a row directly in front of Harry Christophers, with the other singers on long rostra behind them, with two shorter, angled ones at the sides.


Part I :

1. Plainsong ~ Puer natus est nobis
2. Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) ~ Gloria from Missa Puer natus est nobis (1554 ??)
3. John Tavener (1944–2013) ~ The Lamb (1982)
4. Boris Ord (1897–1961) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1957)
5. Traditional ~ ‘Rejoice and be merry’
6. James MacMillan (1959–) ~ O Radiant Dawn (2007)
7. Gabriel Jackson (1962–) ~ The Christ-child (2009)
8. William Byrd (? 1539/1540 or ? 1543–1623) ~ Ave Maria (1605)
9. Plainsong ~ Nesciens mater
10. Walter Lambe (1450–1504) ~ Nesciens mater (latter decades of fifteenth century)


As a prelude to, and informative of, the Gloria from the mass by Tallis that was to come second (because this is what he has built into it), we heard the plainsong introit (1) Puer natus est nobis (‘Unto us a child is born’), with proper solemnity, but also ‘flow’. Initially sung with male voices, at ‘Cantate Domino’ the six sopranos (ranged in the front) came in, but we reverted to men for ‘Gloria Patri et Filio’. Then, however, all together and taking it from the top, with the sound of the setting’s reverberations, and the hesitantly circular effect of its repeated notes.

Run together with it, the (2) Tallis Gloria’s opening line was just a single vocalist, but soon we were fully aware, once again with The Sixteen, of some superbly beautiful individual voices (most obviously at the top), beautifully blended by the choice and care of conductor Harry Christophers (and with configurations of the performers changing to suit the needs of the repertoire). If one will, though, Tallis can easily seduce us from the words that he is setting with the sounds that are created within and between the parts. He is not alone in this regard (in a period of English choral-writing where one can sometimes feel lost – despite having and trying to follow the text), but, here and with this rendition, one did not need to encounter, as if out of nowhere, a cadence and a resolving chord to know where one was.

Moreover, Tallis does not run through the text in one, but makes quite a clear break after the line Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris : a fresh section, with entries that we could quite clearly hear coming in, and one where, on the next six lines (concerning The Lamb of God (please see below)), he was going to spend relatively more time. Christophers could be seen, calling voices out of the texture and into greater prominence, but he is unassuming as a conductor, and our attention was on the singers and their voices, although appreciating, in general terms, how he brought out warmth with the words Quonium tu solus Sanctus, and a building of energy with the concluding three lines. Surely, anyone unfamiliar with his choir was already as rapt as those who came to marvel again at how, in all respects, together they sound.



It was not explicit, so it may have been easy to overlook, but there was a link from Agnus Dei to (3) The Lamb. Most immediately evocative of re-watching The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013) (which uses a performance by The Choir of the Temple Church), Tavener’s The Lamb is of as great delicacy and subtlety as Blake’s poem**.

 Christophers had The Sixteen bring us the first four lines very gently. For the remaining six lines of the first verse, from ‘Gave thee clothing of delight’, there was an inward quality in the ensemble, and it gradually slowed, finally holding back distinctly with the closing line ‘Dost thou know who made thee ?’, provocative of contemplation. In the second verse, we moved through the text smoothly, until a principal point of focus was the pauses between words in ‘He became a little child’ – then, via an increasing ritardando (as with verse one), coming to another held-back last line. Encapsulated here, our response to the other-worldliness of Tavener’s preceding, and slightly Eastern, sound-world, which strikes home through the comparative simplicity of the closing cadence.


On seeing the same programme at St David's Hall, Cardiff, another reviewer (Nigel Jarrett, for Wales Arts Review (@WalesArtsReview)) comments :

Certainly John Tavener’s simple setting of William Blake’s The Lamb and the wondrous stasis of his O, do not move were placed in the programme to show how a miniature could sustain a mood or transform joy into ecstasy, a condition liable in music to outstay its welcome. The way they were sung here, with a lightness and intensity that belied their reputation for being diatonic potboilers meant to beguile the crowd, said much for the choir’s even-handed approach to its material.


If we felt that time moved slowly, with Tavener and Tallis, (4) Adam lay ybounden, Boris Ord’s only published composition, takes barely a minute (and, despite a longer text, ‘Rejoice and be merry’ is typically only half as long again) – hence the conceit, in the title of this posting, regarding the length of our gaze on a polished jewel (as against on a gem-stone). (They may be the exceptions amongst the published programme, but, of course, they are just as much part of what we sing or listen to before or during Christmas, so both can be found in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College (of which the former has, since Ord's time, remained a staple.)

This terribly familiar setting, because of its appearance in those broadcasts from King’s, of a fifteenth-century Carol [and can it be, as it seems (from Wikipedia®), that only British composers have tackled it ?] puts forward, with admirable concision (as of Chaucer’s shorter verse ?), the argument that The Virgin Mary being heavené queen causes the action, of taking the fruit in The Garden of Eden, to be blessed : it is through in a flash, and makes its point. In a piece that has very definite ‘waves’ of meaning, the group was to be less 'rounded' in a reverential way than, in the English choral tradition, is typical in a performance from King’s, and more in accord with the text’s human perspective.

Likewise with the story-telling of (5) ‘Rejoice and be merry’, into which - and with like momentum - we were led. Again, one can see and hear the choir of King’s College with it, balanced and measured : with The Sixteen’s mixed forces, and an affect fitting to the lyrics, they could bring us the first verse with just female (and very pure) voices, and contrast it with the men (and a particular tenor brought forward by Christophers) in the second. Then, pleasingly all together, and to close with very apt celebratory richness in the final verse : Who brought us salvation – his praises we’ll sing !


In this group of three, though, the real contrast was with James MacMillan (@jamesmacm) in (6) O Radiant Dawn, with a few lines of text (probably one-half of the number of words of ‘Rejoice and be merry’). However, as would expect from his work, and from the fact that the text is one of the Advent antiphons (together known as ‘O’ antiphons, from the opening sound of each), and that it is taken from his Strathclyde Motets, there is plenty of impact and reflection (and so exceeding the length of the other two pieces in total).

 We had the first important emphasis on the word ‘Come’ (an appeal, in the middle of the second line, to the Sun of Justice) – a word that is repeated twice, and with increasing harmony, which enthusiastically came across to us. Envisaging those on whom this Radiant Dawn needs to shine, we dropped to the word ‘death’ at the end of the third line. In the second group of lines, Christophers let us hear the accents in the quotation from Isaiah, but dropping off, only to rise – in this piece bathed in light – on the final word ‘shone’.

When MacMillan sets the opening three lines again, it was now with more prominence that – on arriving at ‘Justice’ (the preceding word to ‘Come’, where he had dwelt before) – we had repeated the phrase Sun of Justice. Then, starting softly, The Sixteen came up to a blaze on the word ‘Come’, and a stress on ‘shine’. In a five-times rendered ‘Amen’ (with the stress firmly on the first syllable), we ended in a gravely reverential way, with a handful of singers.


Also writing for King’s, and calling it (7) The Christ-child, Gabriel Jackson set G. K. Chesterton’s poem (an author sadly neglected, but for his Father Brown stories – for example, his excellent novel The Man Who Was Thursday). Familiar to us from other Carols, e.g. ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, but reaching back at least to the period of Middle English, this is an unchanging frame-work into which, each time, varying words are put.

 As has already been noted regarding other works, we heard phrases stand out like jewelled miniatures, such as were the world (right after the embodied ‘O weary, weary’) in the first stanza, and all aright as its closing words (just with female voices). From there, a wordless hum – which we will know from choral music in the liturgical tradition – became part of the transition from stanza to stanza. Back with the more overt implications of Chesterton’s poetry, there felt to be touch of cabaret, in accord with a description of ‘the Kings’*** as O stern and cunning, but dropping back to purity at, and in the light of, the ending of the stanza : But here the true hearts are (followed by a further hum).

In the third stanza, the point of intense drama was hearing – of the Christ-child’s hair – that it was like a fire, and, with the succeeding near-repetition in O weary, weary is the world, we heard less weariness in the line, and that latterly it was infused by female voices, and then concluded the stanza. A softer hum led to the piece's quieter resolution, our relishing the intense feeling, both of Julie Cooper’s high-soprano solo, and of the warm harmonies.


From a setting of nearly five minutes to Byrd’s of (8) Ave Maria, one of one-half its length (and not a complicated setting, even in the composer’s own terms****). One feels that William Byrd was specifically inspired liturgically, as he might well have been by its prohibited Marian content, status and significance. In it, Christophers brought a full and seemly sound from The Sixteen, and the final Alleluia tenderly lasted as a goodly proportion of the whole.


Unlike with Puer natus est nobis, the plainsong antiphon (9) Nesciens mater was rendered to us just by male voices, and then straight into (10) Walter Lambe’s composition for these words. It immediately sounded rooted in the plainsong approach, with prominent lower lines under the rest of the texture - maybe partly accounting for how it takes more than twice as long to perform than the Ave Maria ? (The text of both is five lines of almost similar length, except that the last line of the latter is just the word Alleluia.)

There was a slowing in sine dolore Salvatorum saeculorum (the second line), and then, with some energy, a more elaborate, decorated style emerged, with vowels being sustained for several bars at a time, and typified by the treatment of the word ‘angelorum’, which, in the lower voices, gave rise to the repeated sound ho. (In the hands of the wrong ensemble, it can sound like bogus laughter, hardly appropriate to a serious religious setting.)


Very clearly, in The Sixteen (@TheSixteen), this was the right ensemble, and the applause that the audience had had [to remember] to keep to between the groups of pieces, and to allow the next group to be performed without undue delay, showed it.



Part II :

 11. Tallis ~ Videte miraculum
12. Howard Skempton (1947–) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1999)
13. Richard Pygott (1485–1522) ~ Quid petis, O fili ? (later than 1530)
14. Traditional ~ ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’
15. Tavener ~ O, do not move (1990)
16. Alec Roth (1948–) ~ Song of the Shepherds (2013)
17. Peter Philips (1560–1628) ~ O beatum et sacrosanctum diem (1612)
18. Robert Parsons (1535–1572) ~ Ave Maria (late 1560s)



 As with the setting by Tallis that effectively opened the first half, (11) Videte miraculum was another of significant length (more than four times as long as Adam lay ybounden and ‘Rejoice and be merry’ together) – avowedly not a measure of worth, but the longer pieces necessarily work in a different way from the striking immediacy that those of ninety (or sixty) seconds need to achieve.

In the opening line, Tallis delays respectfully, first of all, on the word ‘miraculum’. Christophers had given another of the sopranos (i.e. not one of the ones credited as soloists) a prominent role, but, regrettably, her tone may have been a little harsh, or too forthright, to be right for this piece.In the four lines from the words ‘Haec speciosum’, we have the plainsong chant, and then jump back to revisit the preceding two lines (beginning ‘et matrem’). The effect is to make Mary’s virginity, coupled with her giving her joy at having conceived, the focus, before giving us plainsong again for the closing words (of, in context, faithful rejoicing) :

 Gloria Patri et Filio
et Spiritui Sancto


In Howard Skempton’s version of (12) Adam lay ybounden, we had something just as brief as Boris Ord’s, but much more restrained : apart from an echoic, Sotto voce quality to it, it only stepped out with a somewhat urgent character to the repeated Deo Gratias ! (which maybe felt provocative of anxiety not praise ?).

For (13) Quid petis, O fili ?, by Richard Pygott, The Sixteen had been significantly rearranged, replacing the row of sopranos across the front with a quartet of mixed voices (soprano, alto, etc.). The Carol began with its recurring short Chorus, from whose opening words it takes its title, and to which the text of the verse (sung by the quartet) leads up each time : at moments, one had been aware of the tone-colours of these chosen singers in the whole, but (necessarily) with the first verse they came to be appreciated more fully, and to delight, with the alto voice being especially lovely.

 The succeeding Chorus opened with tenor voices, before the others joined in, and then opened to a full sound. Mention of Mary in the second verse was coupled with a more expansive feeling, with the other voices treating of the words, and in a way that reminded a little of Monteverdi. This time, the Chorus seemed more reserved, and to be singing with dignity, the dignity of ‘her manners’***** on which the narrator is ‘musing’ in the last verse (sung without soprano voice, in which we might otherwise identify with Mary ?). The final line of the Chorus, beginning ‘O pater, o fili’, was expansive, but we nevertheless came to a thoughtful, quiet close.


In twelve lines - with the invariant closing line, about the sweetness of love, Amor, quam dulcis est amor ! [in which ‘dulcis’ kept coming to the fore] - (14) ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’ is another Traditional number that we might hear, in passing, at King’s in Nine Lessons and Carols : it is barely more than a minute long, so it was grouped with the two items that followed. Not that she did not succeed in it, but there was a quite exposed and difficult solo for Emilia Morton (soprano), with long notes, and not easy to lay against the rest of the texture.

Tavener’s second piece, (15) O, do not move, is from the same decade as The Lamb, and it was also characterized by softness of delivery, e.g. of the way in which, three times, we heard O, do not move. If we might borrow Arvo Pärt’s use of the word, there was a tintinnabulation on the opening word, also sung three times, of what serves as a response, Listen to the gentle beginning, where, when we were given the remainder of the text, it was tenderly, with oriental, descending intervals, and, more prominently than at the start, a hummed drone. Partly, as precious stones might, achieving its effect by the company in which it is placed, Tavener’s composition challengingly shone.

Alec Roth’s (16) Song of the Shepherds had been commissioned, by Little St Mary’s Church, in Cambridge, as a setting of words by Richard Crashaw (priest there from 1638 to 1643), and first performed, not at Christmas, but in April 2013. With eight verses of poetry, it was a flowingly and gently accented narrative-style composition, employing word-pictures to mark significant events, e.g. when we came to Gloomy night embraced the place (the second verse), or We saw thee in thy balmy nest (the fourth) : in that verse, Roth uses a little riff on the words We saw thee (which occur three times), but his general approach is legato, and, if there are subsidiary lines, they are easily followed. A piece of tones / moods, reducing (as the choice of possible resting-places is gradually eliminating) in forces at the end.


The Christmas motet (17) O beatum et sacrosanctum diem by Peter Philips, again noticeably shorter, was again part of the aspect of the programme that treated of The Nativity as such (as in the work (16) by Roth immediately before, or the two (13, 14) that preceded Tavener’s O, do not move). In the first, establishing verse, Philips is only lavish with notes to emphasize the phrase pro nobis, whereas, in the second, we heard several phrases embellished (such as in sono), after a repeat, with lively voices, of the opening line of praise Gaudeat itaque universus orbis. In the last verse, syllables were very clearly spaced, allowing for the effect of bell-sounds in descending figures, and we closed with a highly celebratory, extended Noë, noë.


As heard by Byrd (in the first half (8)), Robert Parsons had set the (18) Ave Maria, and we heard it likewise reverentially, and initially slowly, although there was a sense of it building, with the blessing Dominus tecum of the second line. However, there was an equal impression of falling back afterwards to be attentive and devotional, with Mary’s blessedness and that of Jesus (in her womb). A gentle ‘Amen’ concluded, with rise, fall, and cadence.



There was no enthusiasm to allow the concert to end there, and much for it to continue, so The Sixteen were persuaded to return, with two encores. (When they came back on stage, they took up new positions, in four groups : two at the back (a four stage left, next to a five), and two angled on the sides, with a five next to a four, and vice versa.)

First, the setting, by Michael Praetorius (?) (1571–1621), of the fourteenth-century text ‘Quem pastores laudavere’, sung with due reverence, and, as with other of the pieces that had been performed, relying for its effect relatively linearly, with the sound of one verse building on (or otherwise differing from) what preceded it. As Christmas was just days ahead, The Sixteen finished for the evening with another contrast, in ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’. Nothing flashy, but, with their combined vocal calibre, not unremarkable that they had given us a concluding Christmas piece that we could have joined in with – if we had dared !

 As it was, we thanked them for the quality and intensity of their singing with yet more applause : an evening of music with all the professionalism and interpretative spirit that one would expect.



End-notes

* The Choral Pilgrimages have perhaps tended to take longer settings for their focus, made by two or three composers who were either peers, or where the influence of an established one could be seen on someone younger ?

** For those who do not know the piece (or did not hear the concert), there is a recording of The Sixteen performing it here.

 *** Presumably meaning the Kings Herod (respectively, The Great, and Antipas) ?

**** Perhaps mistaking one’s Tudor composers, from a concert in which Stile Antico (@stileantico) had given works written in the reign of every Tudor monarch (at Beverley Early Music Festival, but not seemingly recorded as such), Byrd had been recalled as one whose density of layering had made the text (even with the programme) hardest to follow. If it was not he (and he had, rather, proved the rule by being the exception), Harry Christophers nonetheless indulged a question in the interval about the difficulty of bringing out the vocal-lines in performing Byrd’s work – as he necessarily would (as one realized, in putting the question !), he hoped that he managed.

As to Byrd and complication, though, he mentioned that The Choral Pilgrimage 2016 was going to feature an eight-part setting – it is as yet unidentified amongst many works by Byrd, listed on The Sixteen’s web-site : failing on 8 April, at the chapel at St John’s College, Cambridge (@stjohnscam), the nearest dates as yet announced appear to be Milton Keynes (28 September), or Kings Place (@KingsPlace) (3 November).

***** Likely to be close to its French origins in manière, and, at a guess, to mean something more like ‘bearing’, even than ‘behaviour’ ? Unlike with the other two verses, in a text (set in 1530) we might struggle to construe the full meaning of these first four lines, for example the opening pair Musing on her manners / so nigh marr’d was my main.




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday 14 November 2015

Plowing one's own furrow

This is a review of a gig that James Farm gave at Saffron Hall

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

15 November

This is a review of a gig that James Farm gave at Saffron Hall on Saturday 14 November 2015

As Joshua Redman (tenor (and also alto) saxophone) made us aware, as spokesman / leader, all of the compositions were by members of James Farm, the sidemen being Aaron Parks (on piano (and Rhodes keyboard)), Eric Harland (drums / percussion), and Matt Penman (double-bass)


Set-list (one undivided set) :

 1. Two steps ~ Matt Penman

 2. If by air ~ Joshua Redman

 3. Unknown* ~ Aaron Parks

4. City folk ~ Joshua Redman

run together with

5. Farms ~ Aaron Parks

 6. Aspirin ~ Joshua Redman

 7. North star ~ Eric Harland
Encore :

 8. Otherwise ~ Aaron Parks




The gig at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) opened with the full quartet of James Farm (@jamesfarmmusic), because sometimes it dropped down to the classic trio of piano, bass and drums when Redman wandered around to the other side of the stage for a breather, and ‘to listen in’, and with Penman’s (1) ‘Two steps’ : with Harland (drums), Penman laid down a bass-pattern, overlaid by Parks (on piano), and then Redman came in softly on tenor.

 With time, Redman moved to a breathy voice, with a slightly ‘flattened’, melancholic tone, and this was the first in a versatile employment, across the set, of differing tone-qualities and timbres. In this, he was amply matched by Parks, who evoked a rain-drenched mood before, not for the last time with these numbers, this one became syncopated. That paved the way for some bluesy playing from Redman, which was also go-ahead, exploring soulful aspects of the tune in honeyed terms – the overall feel was incredibly loose and sassy as it concluded.


Apart from gentle cymbals, Redman gave a solo statement of the theme of his (2) ‘If by air’, and, as the others joined in, his playing was freely placed and elegiac. As he dropped back, and we heard him more alongside Harland’s drums and Penman’s bass, there was the first of several feelings of being reminded of Keith Jarrett. Whether others sensed that, too, we were being taken, with piano textures underneath, to other places in this gig. A change of pace led into a simple, unadorned statement of the theme, which developed a rhythmic overlay, until there was a holiday / celebratory feel to the whole.

 As leader, Redman gave the impression of a skilled pilot of the quartet, but (as he did when going over to the mixing-desk) of being all right with letting the group form a trio, where Parks could be exploratory : in fact, he was rocking it, and impressing with the colours and dimensions in his playing. As the initiation of a sort of extended coda to the piece, when Redman had come back in, he gave us a style of cyclic repetition, and, with his ripples of scales, James Farm was tearing it up by the close.


At this point, and with some playful irony when saying it (pretending that he had forgotten the venue, etc.), Redman told us that it was a great honour and a true privilege to be at... Saffron Hall (and he had seemed quite surprised at the reception and attention that the first two numbers had received). More seriously, after naming the preceding items and introducing the other players and himself, he alluded to the attacks in Paris over night, and offered, as an antidote to violence and destruction, musical ‘experiences of the moment’, and, in it, the artists baring their souls as part of common humanity.


 Parks’ (3) ‘Unknown’* featured, when he presented its recursive theme solo, a prominently repeated note. Redman, now playing on alto and coming in softly with ‘tapping’ from Harland (who was using soft beaters on the drums), presented a pure, high sax tone first, and then intervallic leaps up and down. As the piece developed, the other members established a solid beat, and with ‘firm’ piano from Parks, for Redman’s warm and rounded tone, and with the energy of the beat for him to lay back on. Over time, it emerged that they were rocking up the tune, until Redman took himself out, and the pace stepped down. When he came in again, he was in a contemplative frame, and less 'bright', and ‘Unknown’ drew to a close, with Parks using the sustaining-pedal to hold a moment in the air.


Redman switched back to tenor for (4) ‘City folk’, and seemed to float notes towards us, as a dance-rhythm materialized (bossa nova ?). Penman began playing in his higher register, and introduced a tap (from the case of his bass ?) – here (as earlier in the set ?), a short unacknowledged solo, which gave way to Parks playing expansively and with drums more prominent. Again, an acoustic space to be punctuated by a feeling of purity from Redman, bringing a ‘straighter’ sound-quality. From this place, we slipped away into a clear solo for Penman, with him up and down the finger-board of the bass, and using a ‘slap’ style of playing.

Then, with cymbal added in, along with Harland clicking the rim of his drum, we heard Parks sounding wide, and nearly ‘lush’ (so the notes say ?), on piano – another spot where Harland, Penman and he just took up as a trio. With Redman’s energetic re-entry, over what turned into Messiaen-like spaced piano-chords, one became aware that the ensemble’s playing resembled a ladder, with a sense of modulating ascent – and, as earlier in the set, Harland could be seen in wonderment at Redman, as he was picking up the number and going with it :

Here, Redman was pushing – and circling – through with his sax, and with a confident and uncomplicated tone, a part of the set that felt truly at its nascent peak, for its elongated elaboration, and the punch and invention of Redman’s performance. Eventually, the number came right down to Harland using the end of his stick on the centre of a cymbal, to the subtle rattle of shells, to percussive space noises, and to minimal contributions of texture from Parks.


As ‘City folk’ ended, it was not with its absolute end, and it became clear that what turned out to be (5) ‘Farms’ (Parks) was arriving. James Farm was creatively talking matters over to itself – and in communion with itself and its thoughts – in this ‘baring of souls’, there on stage, to which Redman had drawn our attention. This is what is at the heart of what the best of jazz means, that it can have a provisionality to it, and, in that, a quality of responsiveness and spontaneity : trying may not always work, or catch the right cadence or mood, but is it not so important that the attempt is made** ?

Here, a new, dance-like riff made itself known (which felt like waltzing ?), and we heard open, ‘sounded’ figures on piano. When Redman came in, he brought a richness of tone, alongside Harland on brushes, and the use of twang in Penman’s bass-notes : his sax was moody, with short runs, accents, and held notes. Perhaps echoing an (as yet) unplaced standard, there was a ‘relaxed’ feel, with Parks balladic, expressive, urbane on piano, until we wound up to tenor to the fore, and on a strong beat. Yet, in the event, a very different ending, with piping from Redman, Harland on brushes, and Parks gently letting chords reverberate.


For Redman’s (6) ‘Apsirin’, Parks switched to a Rhodes keyboard, making sequences of three-chord statements, as if they were spoken utterances (a fall, and then a greater rise). This was a multi-patterned number, with a strong ensemble feel, and which migrated from being flowingly tender to an energized and passionate section.

 Parks now switched to a setting on the Rhodes as if of a chime, with minor bell-like overtones, and the intention, at any rate, appeared to be that Redman and he would alternate, with the former making relatively short, and fluid and increasingly faster, responses to Parks' passages. However, whether cues from Parks were being missed or not clearly given, this section did not often appear to flow, and one must credit the effort and the risk, because Parks and he did get ‘into line’, and the piece could grow, and then end with drums and the triple-chord motif.


Redman, introducing Eric Harland’s (7) ‘North star’ as the closing item, said of him that he is ‘the most optimistic’ person that he knows, and that there is not a sad song of Eric’s : the composition was also quite a challenging one, in that the beat had been multi-divided between time-signatures, with the further effect that there was an integral interruption to it (Harland is, after all, a highly experienced drummer, as well as a composer).

When Harland was laying this pattern down, one could see that the other players, such as Parks, were attempting it, but not straightaway picking it up, so all credit, again, to James Farm for playing this number from their City Folk album live, and choosing to do so as the closer. For a moment, one saw Matt Penman bowing his bass, around the time that Parks passed over to Redman, and the two of them were then left again to explore Penman’s intense bass, with Parks supporting, in the trio.

Redman, whether in response to a sudden inspiration or hearing a pre-arranged cue, then had the conundrum of getting back in from the other side of the stage, because he found that there was no navigable route between drum-kit and the bass-amp, or between Penman and the far end of the piano… When back on (he jumped over, past his own playback speaker), he produced an echoey, transparent tone, and then the drums came up, Penman’s bass became strong, and Redman presented what sounded like strokes in Morse.

Between them, with Redman fleetingly placing notes over the top, Harland and Parks were growing the sound, until they fell back into a quieter mode, to which Redman added a ‘wider’, more open sax-tone, and started blending in and out of the whole. Later, as he moved in and out of the groove, came scales (or fragments of them) and trills, and then the overall sensation became that of pulsation, and of a textured backdrop to a driving force. Just before the close and a decrescendo, Redman started playing more breathily, and we ended with drums, strummed bass-notes, and a short flash of harmonics.


Needless to say, a very appreciative house was intent on making clear that it would not be satisfied without hearing a little more…

Building on his earlier irony, Joshua Redman suggested that it was going to be a surprise that James Farm (@jamesfarmmusic) was going to give Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) ‘another song’ – after all that applause seeking it !

It was (8) ‘Otherwise’, one more by Aaron Parks (and from the new album – or, as Redman put it, from the second of the last two albums - which, he went on to say, are the only two albums – yet...).

Parks presented something funkyish, even slightly spooky, before becoming more rhythmic, and Redman now adopted a more relaxed intonation, but with a hint of angularity. The initial ‘feel’ from the group was as smooth as Henry Mancini’s title-theme from The Pink Panther (1963), but later reminded a little, quite appropriately, of Keith Jarrett : his so-called European quartet again (especially the albums Belonging and My Song), with the rise and fall as of Garbarek on sax, and a swinging piano style and a Jarrett-type ‘punch’.

Redman’s tenor soon became more pulsing in nature, and pushing the song forward with his playing, as well as making note repetition part of his expression – and with Parks using the structure of his chord progressions to create a tension. From that, Redman brought us back into the initial smooth section, and, after momentarily giving us some funk, the very end was sax flutter-notes and drums.


Reluctantly, members of the audience at Saffron Hall accepted that the gig was over, and pretty much on schedule, and queued to buy their CDs and get them signed...









End-notes

* The title ‘Unknown’ chimed with a discussion about names of works and bands before the gig (it has been told that ‘James Farm’ derives from those of the group’s members, which at least seems to hold good for J[oshua] + A[aron] + M[att] + E[ric]), in which one observation had been that, since the start of the twentieth century – and no doubt highly confusingly so for curators ! – ‘Untitled’ has been a prominent label for works of art.

** Indeed, the evening's programme-notes (by Peter Bacon), once they have put the members of James Farm in their jazz and own contexts, go on to provide an overview of the tracks on the City Folk album, and then say :

 But while that may be how it all worked out on the recordings, in live concert it might evolve in a completely different way. Aaron Parks has remarked that the real challenges in playing with James Farm are not only in finding ways to improvise over the song-based structure that the band favours, but also in dealing with the unpredictability of these always adventurous and challenging musicians. […]




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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They moved away the highway : Hitchcock and Herrmann in Psycho (1960) (work in progress)

This reviews Psycho (1960), with live score from Britten Sinfonia at Saffron Hall

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 November




This work in progress is a review of a film, with its score played live, at Saffron Hall (Saffron Walden, Essex) : Psycho (1960), performed by Britten Sinfonia, under the baton of Anthony Gabriele, on Saturday 10 October 2015






To be truthful, Psycho (1960) had not seemed Saffron Hall’s (@SaffronHallSW’s) ideal choice for World Mental Health Day (#WMHD = 10 October) – even if a colleague, in mental health, thought it a hoot (rather than a dire mistake that was likely to give rise to great offence)…

In the event, and in crucial respects (to be explored further below), Psycho was not the film that one remembered – as many a film may prove to be, when watched again… ? What the sum of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates, Joseph Stefano’s screenplay, and Robert Bloch’s original novel did and does is much more nuanced than a merely reductive recollection wanted to say – all of those things make the film far more about culpability / criminal responsibility than about a stereotypically negative view of people in states of mental ill-health. (Does Hitchcock feel much nearer to what he believes in, about the mind, with Marnie’s (Tippi Hedren’s) motivations, and with her being mistrusted and misinterpreted by Mark (Sean Connery), in Marnie (1964) ?)


This part is intended to be non-spoilery*

 Seeing a film after more than thirty years, but having seen clips from it at Cambridge Film Festival (@Camfilmfest) in 2011, when Neil Brand (@NeilKBrand) presented his illustrated talk Knowing the Score, about Bernard Herrmann and his film-scores, one was surprised both by how much, and how little, was recalled :

 As well as the major crime, and what happened in the Bates house towards the end, one recollected well the apparent dénouement, the lengthy exposition by an expert (or an imagined one ?*) just before the closing sequence of shots. However, maybe its significance - in relation to those same shots - had been missed, at the time, or overlooked by more vividly remembering an explanation for what Norman Bates did, and who he was, that seemed tenuous… ?

Indeed, it is tenuous, but in fact that is rather the point of it, and why we might be interested in what follows it in the film. Looking at Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho (first published in 1959**) confirms that he intended something loose and artificial about understanding Bates in that way, because Bates’ view of himself, and how others will see him, from the start pervades how it has been written (which leads up to Chapter Seventeen, the three-page conclusion to the work that the film parallels) : the exact level of Bates' self-awareness (which we might gloss as ‘insight’) may be uncertain, but that of his self-reflexiveness is not.


The film with its score played live

 Psycho (1960) is introduced by music that serves as an overture (over the title-sequence), and which is not only full of swirling motifs (which are suggestive of the hesitation and guilt that are to wrack Marion in the opening part of the film [one notes that, in the novel, she is not Marion, but Mary]), but also presents the pattern of strokes that we are to hear later, when she showers. In this way, Herrmann is (as is so often his way – which is, of course, not to suggest that is not also that of Hitchcock) aurally preparing us for what is to come, just as does the inspired, but frenzied, title-sequence (we may remember the energy of that of Vertigo (1958)).

Just being aware throughout of Britten Sinfonia’s (@BrittenSinfonia’s) skilled string-players, arrayed below the screen, we could already sense Herrmann’s work of composition far more immediately than through any sound-system (although the soundtrack, with the music-tracks stripped out, continued to be heard through the speakers). The ensemble normally has a leader (or director), rather than a conductor, but being under the very experienced baton of Anthony Gabriele (@MaestroGabriele) was needful : having the instrumentalists and him before us really heightened our appreciation of how the film had been scored, both when they were playing, or, by being in waiting, thereby making us aware of how Hitchcock and Herrmann (the man, par excellence, of beautifully disconnecting harmonic progressions) had let silence speak. (One important unscored moment is when Marion has been forced to rest – please see below.)


It is a story which begins, at least, with immense specificity (as a crime-story might ?) : we have panned, and homed in on that building in Phoenix, Arizona, and that very room within it – a precise, named Friday (Friday, December the Eleventh - the year will come later), and even the time in the afternoon within it (Two Forty-Three p.m.). (Perhaps Hitchcock, too, when we are still in the mood for expecting when and where he will make an appearance himself, prepares us for Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates : just in one shot, at the window of the hotel-room, does he momentarily give us a premonition of Perkins ?)

 From Marion Crane’s conversation with her lover Sam (John Gavin), who will be flying back out of her life soon, we judge that (whatever the passion that they have just indulged) they are in an affair that does not seem to be going anywhere : the nearest suggestion (itself prescient ?) that we have that he will ever really be with her is when, referring to the question of alimony, he suggestively says I’ll lick the stamps. (Despite the tawdriness of having to be together in this room, they are dogged by the question of what is respectable - which really means ‘affordable’, because he cannot see any way to afford to leave his wife for Marion.)

Dogmatically, if not purely fatalistically, these establishing sequences of the film have Marion saying that one cannot buy off unhappiness with pills (and we also hear views about what happens When your time is up). All very relevant to society's life since influential books such as Prozac Nation (published by 1995), and yet with increasing numbers of prescriptions of such so-called anti-depressants, for patients expecting to escape ‘unhappiness’. When we meet the client of Lowery Real Estate, the dandy with the boot-lace tie and so significant for the plot, he even declares Unhappiness ? I buy it off ! (whose, one might ask ?) : already, Psycho (1960) has so much to say, for 2015, that we may have overlooked before…


We need to pass over the flirting at Lowery Real Estate, and its connection with power and money (though it is relevant to how Norman perceives / chooses to perceive [the character of] Marion Crane - not least as an ornithological taxidermist). In showing the temptation, and the distinct tease, of the cash in the envelope, which sits on the bed where Marion lives (as if it were a person or a lover : Sam, but suddenly become ‘affordable' ?), Hitchcock – excusably, because inexplicitly ? – plays with us just as much with her, as he also does with and through Alice in Blackmail (1929), and the question whether, if we could, we would try to distance ourselves from the scene of a crime…

What turns out to be Marion’s crime is one thing, and that of Norman Bates another (quite other), but Hitchcock involves us, and engages us, with what possibly connects them. For he keeps unravelling the skein of guilt, but keeps something back – because somehow one is reminded of Macbeth, and Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, in a film where Sleep has a role to play. An idyll of just silence comes when Marion has had to pull over to rest – and, when she awakes to find that she has succumbed to sleep, everything is suddenly tense, because she also finds a traffic-cop looking in at her : he is in intense close-up, and with his expression impenetrably uncertain behind large, dark shades.

This moment, too, serves to set up eventually meeting Perkins, and how he interacts with Marion as Norman, and to inform their conversation both when she is first at the motel, and then in Norman’s parlour, as typified by this exchange :

 Traffic-cop : May I see your license ?

 Marion : Why ?

 Traffic-cop : Please...


Before this moment, arguably the most prominent visual – though much else may have distracted our conscious attention from it – has been Janet Leigh’s (Marion’s) very alert and wide eyes in the car***, intensified by her lashes as we watch her drive. This was in the montage when, over and over, she imagines what has been happening since she left town, which we hear in the intensity of the score, and as voices that are talking about her : an embodiment of a guilty conscience, for her and for us. Almost inverting how, in life lived outside the construct of a film, trying to sleep may be a time when memory crowds in and prevents it from happening (we can find ourselves tired, but not sleepy ?), Hitchcock gives us Marion, needing to press on in the dark, but dispirited and discouraged by these night-time thoughts, which sap her energy and resolve – that is a representation of depression and its exhausting effects (apt for #WMHD2015).


Far, far more could be said about the unfolding of this day on screen, with Marion’s seeking to escape the attentions of the cop (and, thus, her guilt personified), and finally arriving where she does, 15 miles from Fairvale : in all this, Herrmann’s score is naggingly there, with worrying how will what she did with the car help, and how much is she torn – by driving on, and by the darkness and the rain – as to whether she can do, or wants to do, what she is attempting. (In fact, is stopping at Bates Motel just fatigue again, or is it partly that she might plan to contact Sam and ask him here… because she does say to Norman about going into town to eat ?)

Having arrived here, though, there was delicacy now brought out in the Sinfonia’s playing, and also a depth of intonation and feeling : unlike those first audiences of Psycho, probably we know where this is going to unfold towards, but that is not important to watching Hitchcock, because following the craftsmanship in how he takes us there is part of the journey, and the mood of the music is tender, as Marion is shown to her room.



More to come...


 End-notes

 * In a section to come (which may end up as a separate posting on Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival), quotation will be made from Robert Bloch's novel Psycho**.

 ** First published in Great Britain in 1960 (Robert Hale Limited, London).

*** They will remind us of Perkins' eyes, right at the end of the film, as well as of when we last see Marion...




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Monday 13 July 2015

Blackmail and Brand at Saffron Hall

This is a review of Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) with full orchestra at Saffron Hall

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 July

* Contains spoilers *

This is a review of a special screening, at Saffron Hall, of Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929), with a score by Neil Brand, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the conductorship of Timothy Brock




From the opening blasts on the brass in the overture to Blackmail (1929), composer Neil Brand (@NeilKBrand) establishes a contrast between a martial, accented tone, where Morse code is not out of place, and a softer one, complete with, in the ranks (no pun intended !) of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (@BBCSO), a celeste. As conductor Timothy Brock and he were to agree in the Q&A*, Saffron Hall’s (@SaffronHallSW’s) acoustic response is incredibly live, which made for a thrilling evening of silent cinema, adeptly accompanied by at least a hundred players.






Moving from a quickly rotating wheel to a police-van, crammed with listening / transmitting gear and personnel, so a tone of grandeur was established, and it was communicated – in scenes that led to an arrest where violent resistance was attempted – the impression that this was a film, too, of high energy and high anxiety, with ‘swirly’, kaleidoscopic string-effects that felt as if they were in tribute to Bernard Herrmann and his score for Vertigo (1958) (also, of course, Hitchcock).




Here, as for Underground (1928), an appropriate appreciation of pace is the hallmark of Brand’s writing, and, even in the quieter moment of the identity parade, he marks the presence of time in the moment by a chime, and soon after engages us with a jazzy feeling that he gives to muted trumpets (as well as nodding towards the signature-tune of Alfred Hitchcock Presents for the usual Hitch cameo).



The boldness of Hitchcock’s direction, and his love of symbolism, is all over this film, with plonking a waitress smack in the middle of Frank and Alice, after they have fought it out with another couple to get seated at the same table (momentarily, we have – till a better opportunity seems to present itself – one member of each couple facing the other in a stand-off) :


We ‘hear’ their words through the inter-titles, of which there is here a plethora, but he teasingly deprives us of their faces, and so their expressions (although, from the note that we see Alice take from her handbag, we know that she is not playing Frank straight**). Hitchcock, when Alice has given Frank the slip, also has the big shadows of ‘The Artist’ and of the man whom we come to know as Tracy all over where Alice is waiting for the former outside where he lives : there, after she has ascended through more shadow (with staircases cut away so that we can see their upwards progress), she then comes to be haunted by his laughing image of a jester.

Even before we get to his atelier, which madly – in keeping with having painted a jester – has the look of a mediaeval castle, those shadows, and Brand’s score, have told us that no good will come of a girl accepting an invitation to a Bluebeard’s dwelling of a place like this… Alice, who is willing to conform to the idea of a girl who just wants to have fun, just cannot resist exploring, and (with her host’s help, happy to be that close) creating an androgynous painted monster. Maybe, too, that little dress, so conveniently left out, is not meant ‘to be resisted’ ? – already, when she has toyed with getting into it, the commanding words Put it on have uneasy undertones in the orchestral writing, reminding us that this may not be the best fashion choice ever.

When, with what is perhaps spontaneous, but no longer a borderline playful removal of Alice’s own clothing***, the pair end up tussling, it is a struggle of shadows that we see – and, of course, we are catapulted forward twenty-five years to imagery of Grace Kelly, resisting attack from Robert Cummings, in Dial M for Murder (1954) (although the hand that emerges is with the knife – in 3D (yes, it was so made), it seems to come out of the screen).




Afterwards, strings and an eerie kind of playing [for those who had not seen, we were told in the Q&A that it was not a theremin, but the effect of bowing a vibraphone on full****], give the immediate psychological significance – although, by contrast, Hitch and Brand make Alice seem very purposive when dressing, covering her tracks, and leaving.

However, the shadows are there, and Alice now seems to descend a toy staircase (as if she is beginning to disassociate – as, later on, in Marnie (1964), which Brand acknowledged was in his mind now). Soon, then, we hear and are shown, in how she hesitates to cross the road, and in the daggers that she hallucinates in the neon of Piccadilly Circus (against which, not for the last time, she seems so small), her purpose is much less so, as she drifts all night…

At this stage in the proceedings, and by kind courtesy of Neil Brand himself, a link to his piece in BFI's (@BFI's) Sight & Sound (@SightSoundmag) :




With the police at the scene of the crime, once the alarm has been called, the military-type theme returns, in a heavy guise. Then Frank arrives, and is directed to have a look around : when he recognizes first Alice’s glove, and then that the dead man is The Artist, the moment is pure theatre, but we do not linger with him, as there is dramatic irony in Alice’s mother saying, via the inter-title when she has brought in a cup of tea, that anyone would think that Alice had not been to bed. And then, just as soon, Alice is left alone to get out from under the covers, in her clothes and even shoes, and with her thoughts. As she repairs her overnight damage in the mirror, a little touch of the sound of Vertigo, and we somehow know that life is never going to be the same :


* At the breakfast table, when asked to cut the bread, the combination of hand, shadow, and knife brings it all back

* Behind the counter, and against the towering shelves, Alice White, newsagent’s daughter, looks small again

* We have a spectral, soft-focus Alice, but we also have Frank, showing her the glove, and (ironically) saying This is the only clue that you were there

* When Tracy comes onto the premises, Hitchcock steps back with the camera, and we have space for deliberation, with these figures just standing there – in the Q&A, Brand told us that, scoring this, he was challenged, and just had to strip back and think of the sub-text

* Tracy reaching towards Frank’s pocket, somehow knowing that the glove is in there – and then he shows us that he has its pair


Vertigo seem to be with us again : when asked in the Q&A, Brand said that he only quoted the themes for Hitchcock Presents and, when the patrolling bobby knows nothing of what is happening high above, that of Dixon of Dock Green. However, he said that the chordal structure of the main theme from Vertigo, with its elevenths and thirteenths, is capable of being both major and minor, and Brand was glad to learn that a Bernard Herrmann sound had been heard through the use of this structure, with which he meant to evoke film noir, but without directly quoting the theme*****.

At the heart of the plot, the nub of the problem faced by Frank and Alice is in the awkward breakfast and its aftermath, with Frank at the back, on the step, and Tracy sniffing the cigar that he forced Frank to buy him. Elsewhere, though, Mrs Humphries is calling at Scotland Yard, with the note that Tracy had left for her lodger. With his score, which Brand was keen to stress to us that Timothy Brock had orchestrated and developed, we hear how paced it is, and how it is in and out of themes as emotions rise and fall.

So, when a search is under way, looking for Tracy through a montage of mugshot books and wanted bills, the martial quality in the music is there in louder form, but, very soon after, we have jazzy notes accompanied by strings : talking about Hollywood orchestras later, Brand said that that string players were always classically trained, but those on trumpets or saxes were jazzers, who were able to deliver with an immediate, full sound.


When the photo of Tracy is found, we are given harp glissandi, and then, on xylophone, dashes and dots of Morse. In Frank’s perception, Tracy becomes, as he calls him, a suspicious looking man with a criminal record, and, with a big sax swagger, he leans cockily on the mantelpiece – domesticity itself, and the assertion that a man, once fingerprinted, is assumed to lose credibility. In large form, a reference to that Vertigo sound again, before we end up with ‘brassy’ negotiation, and then, with ‘pregnant’ strings – Tracy trying to persuade himself as much as Frank that he has reason to be believed over and above Alice and him (my word against hers).

But his nerve does not hold, when other police arrive, and the whirl / swirl of the orchestra must reflect as much his state of mind as Alice’s confusion, having tried to tell Frank that she does not want him to do this and that she has something to say, but being silenced. Out through the window Tracy goes, and we revert to the opening image of the van-wheel in motion, as he flees, but keeps encountering police officers, to whom, rightly or wrongly, he thinks that his status must be known:


So it is that, after he has paused for a drink, we see him as the pursuers do, as a speck against the hugeness of the façade of The British Museum, between whose monumental columns he passed, and which towered above him. Inside, massive Egyptian heads also stress his insignificance, and his likely fate being in larger hands, and – when he descends a chain – there is another huge head behind him, with Brand giving us heavy brass, and throaty trombones. A momentary glance into the Reading Room, and then – terribly small again – Tracy is on the breast-like dome, and, next, has plunged through the glass, back into the famous space below.


As at the opening, when Alice is waiting for Frank (and berating him for keeping her waiting), we are at Scotland Yard. There is an open, gracious theme as she asks to speak to the inspector, and is told that she needs to fill in a form. In terms of instrumentation, we are down to her small voice, and, when she is shown in, we find that Frank is there : again, he is wishing to head her off in the light of Tracy being implicated. Just when she is about to speak, news of what happened to Tracy obliges the inspector to leave her in Frank’s charge.

As they leave the room, we can see her torment in her tortured hand on her bag, and then, now that she tells him, and when Frank finally realizes what did happen, he drops her hand (with nothing offering a way back).




At this dramatic conclusion, the applause was enthusiastic.

Brand was welcomed to the stage, where he warmly embraced Brock, and where the orchestra and both men took several curtain-calls : the film had been honoured by this playing, and this score, and this first venture by Saffrons Hall and Screen had been very well received.


But do not take one's word for it, as there is verification by Tweet here, with even a link to another review :






End-notes

* Which was hosted by Saffron Screen’s (@Saffronscreen’s) Rebecca del Tufo (@BeccadT), since this successful community cinema, also based with Saffron Hall at The County High School, was its projection partner for the evening.


Neil Brand, Timothy Brock, and Rebecca del Tufo at the Q&A (left to right)


** Seeing, further on, the portrait of Frank as a constable in Alice’s room suggests that they have been going steady for a while (he has now risen through the ranks), as does the dutifulness with which, when prompted, he gave her a peck on the cheek when she has waited for him after work. Is having him as a beau more to satisfy her parents’ needs than hers ? (My Russian friend, pragmatically, had no sympathy for Alice for putting herself in harm’s way with The Artist (and being no better than she should be), but that is just she…)

*** Contrast with the mucking around, even with a stranger, in Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) (1930), which Brand (and Jeff Davenport) played for us at Cambridge Film Festival 2014…

**** One heard / seen recently when, in chamber configuration, Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) performed Joey Roukens’ new work Lost in a surreal trip (2015) (where these ears, at least, detected North by Northwest (1959)).

***** And, on the use of the theme itself in The Artist (2011), Brock and he said that they gathered that the theme had been used as a place-holder, which, when those composing for the film did not satisfy the director with anything else, simply came to be used at that point in the film : Brand agreed that the direct use of the theme not only is a musical strength that is not ‘earnt’ by the film, but also that it inaptly connects us straight to the pair of Kim Novak and James Stewart.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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