A review of Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court for / with Louis #Andriessen (Part II)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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14 February
This is the second part of a review of a concert given by Britten Sinfonia under Andrew Gourlay and with soprano Allison Bell, as part of a BBC Louis Andriessen Festival at The Barbican Centre, presented by Tom Service at Milton Court on Saturday 13 February at 3.00 p.m.
Second part first, in this review (as the notes more naturally cohered as prose when being typed up, in a quiet spot on level -2 at Milton Court). Dances (1991) is, for a change with lyrics, settings from a novel, Winged Pharaoh. (Joan Grant’s historical novel, which, when published in 1937, apparently first garnered strong interest in her work.)
After a long first part, and with no Louis Andriessen (#Andriessen) to hand for Tom Service (@tomservice) to talk to about Dances, he called for the audience to welcome soprano Allison Bell (@bellAsoprano), Britten Sinfonia, and - conducting again - Andrew Gourlay.
The cover of the first edition of Winged Pharaoh (1937)
The introductory part of the work (Section I (without voice)) had some chiming notes (from percussionist Jeremy Cornes), which were at least piercingly on a par with Stravinsky’s chords, from four concert grands, in Les Noces (though, without having heard that piece live, it is hard to be sure), and with elements added by harp and grand piano – that temporal reminder alternated, for a while, with some sparse solo material on viola (Clare Finnimore). With a texture becoming established, comprising sustained notes on strings, and the harp to introduce / effect / signal sudden modulations (in a slightly Steve-Reich way ?), the key element was an ostinato on vibraphone.
In Section II (what we would normally want to call the second movement), where Allison Bell first had a role, another ostinato was set up, but this time on harp (Lucy Wakeford), alongside a variety of percussion (from Cornes and Karen Hutt) and energized strings. It took a little while to acclimatize to the text, the mistake being to assume (not having it to follow) that it was going to be in Dutch, when it is English, but then, although elements of these words seemed sententious, it is inconceivable afterwards that Joan Grant was unfamiliar¹, amongst other things, with Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps² (The Rite of Spring).
Quite aside from the words, their delivery was felt, but also hypnotic, in the spirit of a work that seemed all in a dream. With some very rhythmic writing for both cellos (Caroline Dearnley and Julia Vohralik) and piano (Catherine Edwards), played with liveliness, we built to what ‘the music’ and ‘drums’ in the prose told us was ‘a mighty storm’, so the lyrics were co-creating this loud passage with the score itself, only for us to relax into this type of living torpor (before, towards the end, arpeggios on the harp), which appears to speak of Symbolism and / or Surrealism – one easily thinks of the somnolent expectancy of the canvases of Paul Delvaux, or Giorgio de Chirico :
[T]hey were as still, as trees upon a silent evening¹
For Section III, the review-notes become more sparse (partly because trying to make, and then jot down, observations can easily come to distract from listening - from taking in the scope and scale of the whole). It was characterized by the use of see-saw intervals, hints of Sprechstimme (?), and more florid language, though – at odds with itself – to express a form of aristocratically promoted self-control [associated with the days, not then past, of The British Empire], which is neatly summed up by stressing the need ‘to keep a stiff upper lip’ [please see also below] :
[N]or if the outline of my eye was smudged, could I throw the wax upon the floor, as I sometimes longed to do. Always I had to preserve an unflawed calm, as though the light around me shone like pearl instead of being flecked with the red of anger.
None of this emotion could stay suppressed, and Allison Bell was called upon for her specialty of the very high soprano range, with the Sinfonia strings most furiously played. Yet, as with Section II (and its words ‘quietness’ and ‘peace’), all returns to where it was, and Section III ended with a note on vibraphone, held until Gourlay’s signal.
The Disquieting Muses (1918) ~ Giorgio de Chirico
Some important words that came out in, and through, Bell’s rendition of the text in Section IV were ‘companionship’ and ‘longing’, seeming to speak with yearning, as well as sadness : [T]he loneliness of all women who do not have a man to share their lives seemed to be the voice’s position in life, but here seemingly not from lack of a partner (in fact, however, the voice's fellow ruler is her brother³), but because of not being able to share, for He would be sorrowful, if he knew. In the orchestra, an alternating pair of notes on vibraphone developed into the pattern of the initial ostinato, and with modulations, again, on the sound of a chord from the harp, and then a passage on the strings, with definite down-strokes. Dances concluded as the previous movement had done, quietly.
Andrew Gourlay was necessarily intent on Allison Bell taking due recognition : as we knew, in herself she was probably feeling under par, but this was a performance richly deserving acknowledgement alongside that of Britten Sinfonia, and she was brought back to the stage with enthusiastic applause.
We were left to think about the timbre of this piece, whose effect was as of a song-cycle, with the narrative of those who appear to have their appointed role in ceremonial rites (Section II) juxtaposed with the permanent position of majesty (Section III) and the lack of a consort to whom one dare to reach out to share (Section IV) : it is almost as if, in Andriessen’s selection of material, we hear of an Egyptian ruler modelled on Elizabeth I (but not informed by such works as Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex (published in 1928)), but with the sentiments of Schumann in Frauenliebe und –Leben…
End-notes
¹ Whatever the context in the book, the chosen passage is discrete and compact (fewer than 170 words) - wonderfully complete in itself, it evokes the phases of a cycle, as if of vegetative growth : at a time when Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough, now apparently much discredited, was still in its heyday ?
² As Jo Kirkbride's programme-notes now confirm, after this review has largely been written, the composition was a huge early influence on Andriessen, so he has found his source-material for a reason.
³ The programme-notes also tell us that the soloist represents the Princess Sekhet-a-Ra, joint Pharaoh in The First Dynasty with Neyah, her brother.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
