Sunday 26 July 2015

Film Festival frenzy (#CamFF 2015)

Recollected in tranquillity : Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF)

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


27 July

Recollected in tranquillity :
The bustle that was Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF)

Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest / #CamFF) is just around the corner from putting on its big show again amazing to think that, when one first attended screenings there, all the programming was for a one-screen cinema, and one almost took for granted getting to see the new Woody Allen early…

As the Festival gears up for the thirty-fifth time (that’s where, behind the scenes, the frenzy comes in !), no less, a little moment to reflect on last year…


* Well, one was seeking to promote the Camera Catalonia (Catalan) strand, by providing reviews ahead of the screenings : a double pleasure, first to do so, and then to see how beyond the confines of 'a screener', watched on a laptop the full potential of the image blossomed in proper screenings


Composer Ethan Lewis Maltby, on the far right, during the Q&A for Fill de Caín (Son of Cain) (2013) (with Ramon Lamarca next to him, and director Jesús Monllaó)


* Relatedly, meeting and interviewing three Catalan film directors and happening to take two of them punting on the Cam (and even giving one a punting lesson)


Punt pupil (and film director), Hammudi al-Rahmoun Font


* Plus lovely Festival photography from Tom Catchesides (@TomCatchesides) and David Riley (@daveriley) ! (That as well as being with the winning team of Catalan curator Ramon Lamarca, and intern-cum-interpreter Cristina Roures)



Ramon Lamarca and Mar Coll at Festival Central image courtesy of Tom Catchesides


* The chance to watch both screenings of some Festival favourites at, and see especially how Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross) (2014) (but also Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy) (2013) repaid renewed attention



* The coffee, the chats, the news – in passing, as one dashed to different screenings – of other viewings, and the celebrated insanity of the TAKE ONE (@takeonecinema) crew (and of a Vine into which we were all cajoled, which was later banned (Not me, guv’ !)…)

* Meeting Dunstan Bruce (@dunstanbruce) for a fun, late-night TAKE ONE interview about A Curious Life (@a_curiouslife), his film on The Levellers (@the_levellers) (with a microphone-wielding editor in chief hiding under a table ?)



Dunstan Bruce


* With Screen 1 in gala mode, the warmth and energy in a film tribute to the late Tony Benn, Tony Benn : Will and Testament (2014)




* Warmth and energy of a different kind in, having guided one of the Catalan directors there, Festival regular Neil Brand (@NeilKBrand), with Jeff Davenport, playing to Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) (1930), an early picture credit for Billy Wilder




* And, of course, the expected preview of the new Woody Allen, Magic in the Moonlight (2014) (and the brief delight of a vocal from Ute Lemper) a tetchy role for Colin Firth that also made some people unnecessarily sceptical of historical fact that men of his age married women of the age of Emma Stone ?












* Closing-night party ? No, sorry, one does not know anything about that !



See you at Cambridge Film Festival, daily during the eleven days from 3 to 13 September !




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

Friday 24 July 2015

Czech classics in Cambridge

This is a Festival review of Melvyn Tan and The Škampa Quartet

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


24 July


This is a review of a concert given, as part of Cambridge Summer Music Festival, by Melvyn Tan and The Škampa Quartet at West Road Cancert Hall on Friday 24 July 2015 at 7.30 p.m.

Cambridge Summer Music Festival (@cambridgemusic) has, in years past, given opportunities to hear both the Quartet and Melvyn Tan one well remembers the latter in Messiaen (Quatuor pour la fin du temps same page-turner !), and in a piano recital (also at West Road : @WestRoadCH) and the former at The Union Society (@cambridgeunion), and here they were together !


West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge



Beethoven ~ Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

Janáček ~ String Quartet No. 2 (‘Intimate Letters’)

Dvořák ~ Piano Quintet No. 2* in A Major, Op. 81



The review begins with what is most immediate in one’s mind, where Melvyn Tan (@Melvynbetan) and The Škampa Quartet played together



Antonín Dvořák (18411904) ~ Piano Quintet No. 2* in A Major, Op. 81

1. Allegro, ma non tanto

2. Dumka : Andante con moto

3. Scherzo (Furiant) : Molto vivace

4. Finale : Allegro


The huge scale of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 (in A Major, Op. 81) (from 1887), is necessarily influenced by the scale of the quintets by Schumann (1842) and Brahms (1864), and its principal themes will not fail to be known to and impress us.

So Dvořák gives us one of his telling melodies on cello, before it is passed to the first violinist (Helena Jiříkovská) : we could not only see, later, Melvyn Tan’s facial pleasure at how she rendered it, but also smiles from Adéla Štajnochrová (second violin), Lukáš Polák (cello) and Radim Sedmidubský (viola) at playing this music from their homeland, which they were going to develop for us with commitment and verve :

Into the structure of the movement, Dvořák inserts dance measures, and we hear him, through them, reaching to make a grand assertion with the material. Then, when Polák brings back the theme, it is controlled, with piano set against it, and Tan goes on to punctuate and facilitate the movement, with the music revealing itself, and its expressive potential, in the repeats, and with the intervallic leaps giving us a sense of reaching for the stars.

The scoring seems to use the piano and the quartet as if they are desks of instruments in an orchestra, ranging the former against the later, and, in the rise and fall, do we hear echoes of the composer's symphonic sound from the late 1880s / early 1890s ? (It is a different approach from the more integrative one of Brahms, but with the same orchestral possibilities at work.) With the sound of the piano closing the movement, there was a strong feeling of excitement in the ensemble to be performing this work.


At the opening of the second movement, Tan placed the theme before us with articulation and great delicacy, and then, as the others handled it, continued to do so in the capacity of embellishing and enriching it. We are a little reminded, by a melodic line in the cello part, of the slow movement of the Schumann quintet, and then Dvořák lulls us, again and again, into a restful state with each time that the piano restates the initial theme.

New vistas open with a feeling of holidaying (or journeying), and, with an undercurrent from the cello, of traversing summer meadows. Very tender playing from Polák, with the merest of gestures on violin, brought in a section of enchanted quietude : the other players were profoundly hushed as he played tremolo writing with a powerful strength of feeling. Then, full of energy, a new motif, and Tan’s face said it all, as that motif turned into a modified form of the theme. Just before the end, the holiday mood resumed, and so did the magic, in this respectfully unhurried and quiet music-making almost a lullaby.


Albeit in proportion to the rest of the work, this is a biggish Scherzo**, and it is almost an anthology of themes, with the same feeling of yearning / journeying. This was playing with every appearance (though we know the hard work that it belied) of effortlessness, and Dvořák makes us feel a measure of ease, though he is shifting the tonal centres, and also playfulness, with Tan giving us a profound legato, echoed by the string-players. That moment of yearning briefly recurs, before the use of variation-form reminds us of the Beethoven Piano Sonata, and the Scherzo closes with very definite, clear strokes.

The Finale is written with, and was played with, graciousness and also propulsive force, and Dvořák subdivides, by sounding the violins against the cello and the viola : the stage arrangement chosen, with the first violin to audience left, and the viola to the right, was good visibly, but also separated the voices here. Rhythmic patterns are used in the scoring, as well as little, playful gestures of the notes of another key, and the effect of small pulses.

As the Allegro moves, it develops into a fast, modulating fugue with a lively piano voice, but then bringing back a theme from an earlier movement. The harmony becomes ambiguous, and there is a play-fight of a tussle as to where we are rooted, before reducing to a hush, for a simple statement on violin, to which the other strings add descending figures.

They provided exceedingly quiet harmony to a piano passage, before what must have been one of the softest sections of pizzicato ever. From there, first violin Helena Jiříkovská took the lead, but, with competing material that desired to come to the fore, Dvořák left us guessing right to the closing bar to see how he would end this thrilling, lively piece.


One took great pleasure in and in hearing this work, and was most impressed both by the integration of all the players into the work, and by the deployment of what Ralph Vaughan Williams (in praising a performance under Sir Adrian Boult) called a true pianissimo (or ppp). The Festival audience was abundantly happy to have finished the varied programme with this compelling playing, where attention had been intense all round.


* * * * *


Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) ~ Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

1. Vivace ma non troppo / Adagio espressivo

2. Prestissimo

3. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo


Melvyn Tan (image from www.nmcrec.co.uk)


Performances vary as to whether the two sides of the first movement are ‘run together’ with another in that of the second movement, but these so-called five (or six) ‘Late’ sonatas are their own kind of beast : probably, one guesses more (as one listens), not because Beethoven only came technically to think in terms that broke the mould at this stage in his life, but because, as Bach was, he must have been aware of his legacy, and could dare to say the things that had been in his heart for a long time ? [For CRASSH (@CRASSHlive) in January (also at West Road), Murray Perahia’s compelling analysis of, and guided performance with The DoricString Quartet (@doric_quartet) of movements from, the original form of Beethoven’s Opus String Quartet Op. 130 revealed the roots of his thinking, and of his future-proofing compositions.]




Melvyn Tan, who saluted the one nearest to him, clearly had not seen before the distended urns, bearing plants with green foliage, that had been arranged at either end of the piano : as they did not disturb him, they served to give a certain balance to the backdrop of what can, visually, be an exposed stage at West Road. As is usual with him, he seems to catch himself as much as us by surprise in starting to play, i.e. without any grand preparation of holding the arms aloft above the keyboard :

He threw us straight into something that causes us to ask what Schubert (17911828) would have made of this theme (or of the use of variation form ?) he whose mere thirty-one years alive were, apart from the last twenty months, coincident with when Beethoven was alive (17701827 : as we do not always realize ?). Beethoven gives us here with typical, and undimmed, Beethovenian fire, drive and energy a mix of feelings and techniques straightaway, with a great sense of balance, and of modulation, momentary touches of great beauty, and the hands gradually separating to the ends of the keyboard.

In all this, Tan felt immensely prepared, but not to have premeditated the exact interpretative choices that he brought to the performance which is what one values so much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score except that it was always going to be rhythmically very live, and played from the inside outwards.


A Schubertian theme of tenderness (or Schumannesque, ahead of its time ?), which was right at the outset of the Andante, Tan repeated slightly more softly. Pacing the playing as if it were breathing, he brought out its quality as a chorale, and, emphasizing some of the not obviously significant internal lines, led us into the variations : the heart of the matter, infused by dance-forms, and also with wonder at what the world might have made of this music at the time...

If one had judged by appearance, and been unable to hear Tan’s playing, he did not look at ease, and one would not have imagined that he was creating such a beautiful, appropriately precise sound much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score as part of which, as the variations progressed, he also brought out some spikiness in the writing. In working on Beethoven with The Doric Quartet (as mentioned above), Murray Perahia talked about a moment when, to try to paraphrase the religious conception that he evoked, Heaven comes to meet Earth, and we had that feeling from Beethoven here much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score and then building to an expansive treatment.

Yet, at root (as with, say, The Goldberg Variations), all that development comes back to a simple statement, and then further decoration / ornamentation, in which we hear Tan exposing the full feeling within this sonata, and enwrapping us in it : we are willing it on, to where we hear it to be going, and he is maintaining our engagement, by keeping something back. It is, though, in a simple statement again that Beethoven, through Tan, seeks a conclusion, with much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score reminding us of the chorale element much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score a nigh Lutheran, quiet close to this thoughtfully vibrant interpretation.


* * * * *


Leoš Janáček (18541928) ~ String Quartet No. 2 (1928) (‘Intimate Letters’)

1. Andante Con moto Allegro

2. Adagio Vivace

3. Moderato Andante Adagio

4. Allegro Andante Adagio


The Škampa Quartet (but one got away, Adéla Štajnochrová) : Radim Sedmidubský (viola), Helena Jiříkovská (first violin), Lukáš Polák (cello)

The opening Andante sees paired violins against, first, viola in an extreme Sul ponticello, then cello : in all this, there is the assurance of mastery of language and form from, especially here, Radim Sedmidubský (viola) and Lukáš Polák (cello). Propelled by writing for the latter, the work opens like a flower, but one that is both vibrant (energy, passion, enthusiasm, from Janáček and his interpreters) and, at the same time, shy and delicate, exemplified by an almost imperceptible Sul ponticello passage from Polák. Throughout, the members of the quartet are communicating to each other, as well as to us, links in its episodic structure, where it moves from a slow and reflective feeling of the rhapsodic to intensity. Brought in by quiet writing for viola and touches from the violins, the movement came to a high, bright close.


The Adagio starts with sinuous writing for viola, which passes back and forward with the second violin : we hear not only the full, rich sound of the quartet, but also Janáček’s pleasure and skill in writing for what is best in the viola. Beginning with very fast figurations for lead violin, the Vivace is heartfelt in its harmonies, but there are also ambiguous notes and discords as it progresses to the rhythms of a march or dance, there is the ambivalence of Will it, won’t it ? to the mood.

We noticed the quartet’s careful use of a range of dynamics, and how contributions to the dialogue from the viola are a significant part of the work***. It is with a sensation of inner irresolution (in some version of Janáček whom we fictionalize having all these experiences of mood- and thought-patterns) that we conclude.


Led by first violin Helena Jiříkovská, the third movement has a formal, but not icy, tone, before sounding triste and regretful. Just for, initially, a short episode, it is like a folk lullaby – when, after other material, it recurs, it is quieter, but with intensity and feeling in the realisation. With an element of squeakiness (from the score), the violins quietly proceeded, but, then, the players are on full, with an alternation of a dance and a firm pulse. With a highly energized section, from which a frenetic version of the lullaby emerges, and we come back and back to its theme, it is as if the music (as art is sometimes thought to be) is therapeutic. Janáček seems to be seeking a soft resolution, and, twice, ushers in an open sound, although it is to be with the end of its outbursts that it is over.


As we had been used to, The Škampa Quartet brought overwhelming musicality to the familiar theme with which the last movement asserts itself then, a quiet interlude, before a little moment of fireworks, and resuming the theme, now full and clear. Still, all is not well with the interaction between the inner and outer in this work, and Polák had some stark statements to make on cello, and there are tensions in the harmony, and with keys and rhythms pulling against each other.

A first use of playing pizzicato (first the viola, then the two violins) led into a ‘jogging’ line for cello, of which the violins were then mimetic. In this, a sense, still, of unease and even pain, and a reduction to a very gentle dynamic. However, there is no way except up, and then all four elements of the quartet in several bars’ worth of a hugely scratchy, amorphous character : it is to resume, louder and longer, but, before it does so, the viola gives us the big theme. On the edge of our seats with the emotion in the viola part and somewhat as with the Dvořák quintet (please see above) we are asking where does / will / can this music end.

But end is what it forces itself to do, and we know that we have heard what offers great understanding of this soul-searching piece : Yes, factually the players are Czech, and share that with the composer, but they really felt, on some quite different level, to be magnificently in tune with this repertoire, and to have done far, far more than entertain us with it : taking us into their world.



For now, the review ends there, with a continuation / completion to come...


End-notes

* Wrongly identified, in the Festival programme, as Piano Quintet No. 1, which was Dvořák’s Opus 5 (in the same key) : although he destroyed the manuscript soon after, it did have a premiere, and one understands that it was having borrowed a copy to revise the work, fifteen years later, that caused him to write anew, and produce this masterpiece in the tradition of those already mentioned.

** Not unlike the scale of that, marked Andante, of Schubert's Piano Trio No. 1 in B Flat Major, Op. 99 (D. 898) ?

*** Maybe it was an instrument favoured by Kamila Stösslová, who (despite being a married woman who did not return his feelings) corresponded with Janáček for many years, and was with him when he died ? (We understand that she was Janáček’s inspiration for Kát'a in Katya Kabanová, the vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen, and Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Affair.)




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

Thursday 23 July 2015

Cambridge Open Studios 2015 : Images kindly supplied by Cathy Parker

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


23 July

In two versions, the paintings described in the companion posting Cambridge Open Studios 2015 : Sunday 12 July (Weekend 2) Happy viewing ! :



Images, speaking for themselves














And / or



Images, with intended characterization underneath


* North York Moors [CP2] oil, £290



The view is characterized by ruddy clouds, with water represented, as it recedes, by purples and violets what we feel most clearly in the landscape is the flatness, and the sense of distance



* Wicken Fen, November [CP8] watercolour, £190




The eye is drawn to cherry browns, with yellow touches in the sky, and the blue-grey rendering of the trees that skirt the scene



* North York Moors [CP7] watercolour, £190



In the heavy blackish brown of the foregorund, there is a detail of green, with, in the distance, a wash of cloud, and bluey-purple hills





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

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Cambridge Open Studios 2015 : Sunday 12 July (Weekend 2)

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


22 July




On 12 July, a day had been planned despite the rain, which was not light at one stage to visit the Cambridge Open Studios displays of three favourite artists...


Anna Pye






And now :





Gina Ferrari

Then (after elderflower at Anna's) a no less welcome invitation from Gina Ferrari (@FanMyFlame) :











Cathy Parker

Later, deliberately to see Cathy Parker’s work (which had been long admired, and often got one’s literal vote, at exhibitions by Cambridge Drawing Society), one ventured out to the church of St Mary the Virgin (?*) at Swaffham Prior : there turned out, still, to be relatively little of Cathy's on display (although there were some unframed works, notably a watercolour, Wicken Fen, Baker’s Fen [UF7]), but one engaged more with it than with that of her fellow exhibitors.




Here are some highlights, described :


* North York Moors [CP2] oil, £290
The view is characterized by ruddy clouds, with water represented, as it recedes, by purples and violets what we feel most clearly in the landscape is the flatness, and the sense of distance


* Wicken Fen, November [CP8] watercolour, £190
The eye is drawn to cherry browns, with yellow touches in the sky, and the blue-grey rendering of the trees that skirt the scene


* North York Moors [CP7] watercolour, £190
In the heavy blackish brown of the foregorund, there is a detail of green, with, in the distance, a wash of cloud, and bluey-purple hills


A good round of visits during Open Studios before needing to make it to Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) to review Neil Brand's (@NeilKBrand's) score for Blackmail (1929), performed by The BBC Symphony Orchestra (@BBCSO), conducted by Timothy Brock


End-notes

* None of the web-sites seemed, despite the fact that there are two churches in one churchyard, to take sufficient trouble to tell one which is which, so the venue was as Cathy Parker kindly advises** actually the Church of St Cyriac and St Julitta (dedicated, according to the detail of the Wikipedia® web-page, to Saint Quiricus and Saint Julietta)...

** She has also usefully provided images of the three paintings described : for those who like the words on their own first, they have been put in a separate posting...




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

An environmental thread at #CamFF 2014 : Energized and (incomplete) Last Call

An environmental thread at Cambridge Film Festival : Energized (2014) and Last Call (2013)

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


22 July

An environmental thread at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 : Energized (2014) and (incomplete) Last Call (2013)

There is synergy (no pun intended !) between Last Call (2013) and Energized (2014), which is why they should be being reviewed together. (That said, a clash of programme at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF)* meant that only the last part of Energized could be seen – and the review of Last Call has been ‘forever’ finishing itself, so it will continue to linger, and we hope that it may follow…)



The latter seems more focused, because its sections, although in some ways discrete, bleed into each other – in a short space of time, we get a good sense of the energy-independency of Murnau, in Austria, with examples, facts and statistics concisely given, and then move on (via narration and then a caption) to a related topic. This is the style of the film, which means that it can cover much ground by linking segments in this way.

Who benefits from large-scale solar arrays, the possible merits of a super-grid for power distribution, and the competing claims about power loss when conveying electricity over vast distances were all presented – quite apart from France’s near-total reliance on nuclear as a source of energy, and the concerns about the integrity of how its nuclear waste is kept (nothing to do with the risk of terrorists gaining access, but the relatively poorly understood systems of storage that were apparently used in the early years (as mentioned in the review of Containment (2015) at Sheffield Doc/Fest (@sheffdocfest)), but which no one, except the campaigner shown (who installed them), seems to want to acknowledge and revisit) – the film is a compendium of issues that affect the choices that nations make for the future of Earth’s resources.



Yet one simple example hits home very hard, that of a farmer growing sunflowers on one-tenth of his farmland. He told us that harvesting crops (one assumes that he meant the whole process of planting seeds, spraying, harvesting, tilling and levelling) uses 23% of the world’s consumption of fuel. However, he has converted his machinery to be powered by the sunflower oil that he produces (and in a way that satisfied his wife that he was not ruining the machinery) : the oil not only provides fuel for his farm, but gives him the means to plant and harvest future sunflowers.




By contrast, Last Call (2013) takes a longer view, because its ambit is from when the study The Limits to Growth was published (in 1972 – we see footage of the hopeful launch), how it came to be written, and what has happened since. It suffers – not inevitably – on this account, because, at times, its focus seems to be on where its authors were twenty years on, a subtle shift from how the study itself is being viewed at that remove (although, for those still alive and campaigning, there is common ground).

With the fortieth anniversary, it becomes even less clear whether we are following the authors’ fortunes or that of their work, some of whom, such as Dennis Meadows, are still addressing conferences, whereas others, such as his ex-wife Donella, set up an environmental community (and had died before the anniversary)… The narration also suffers from the fact that the voice used seems to have a patronizing tone to it, which tends to make one feel that one is not being given credit for what one already knew :

For example, Geography lessons at school (shortly after the report had appeared) had treated things such as the impending population explosion as understood – even if, when it comes to governments, they generally have not, of course, had the resolve to do very much to address it, despite the related problems of increased consumption of limited resources…

What one did not appreciate, until now, was the existence of The Club of Rome (as instigated by the invitation of Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King), which had a significant role in the publication of The Limits to Growth, because it sponsored the visit to MIT and commissioned the report. Likewise, one does not recall footage of Jimmy Carter addressing the American nation about the challenges that it faced, and also putting solar-panels on The White House :

That with which one is more familiar is the attitude that ignored or disdained the possibility that mankind might be having any effect on the environment, typified by further footage, this time of Ronald Reagan, dismissing any idea of limits to growth as unthinkable – as if growth were a God-given right, even an undeniable virtue, and so anyone talking of limiting it were calling for a curb on the American spirit itself, if not pronouncing anathema.

One takes from the film the idealism of the writers of the report, imagining that their views would be influential for good, and their not expecting a vigorous and very hostile reaction against them, which in the press – as a file of newspaper clippings show – rarely, if ever, engaged with the real issues, or represented the writers’ arguments for what they were.

The report had been a scholarly plea, based on the best modelling available of the world’s interrelated and potentially ungovernable infrastructure (i.e. if left until out of control), to consider what growth upon growth would yield for the Earth’s future : just as Carter embraced the possibility of changing path to ensure mankind’s survival, so – because politically motivated – Regan’s administration ridiculed it.

Probably (though other advocates are not much mentioned) they ridiculed Isaac Asimov, a scientist as well as a science-fiction writer. Green-house gases, and the effects that they may have had on the environments of other planets in the solar system, may have been fine for extraterrestrial science, but it was only in the little knee-jerk ban of CFCs (carbon fluorocarbons), when a hole was found in the ozone layer, that we have seen any obvious response to a consideration of Earth’s atmosphere.

For Dennis Meadows, even if the point may have been passed when the foot could have been taken off the throttle with regard to the effect on Earth, he keeps on campaigning and fighting for this cause. [...]


End-notes

* Watching Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) (1930), with interpretative commentary from Neil Brand and Jeff Davenport, meant that one was elsewhere at Energized's start-time of 5.00 p.m.




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

Tuesday 21 July 2015

People Watch People Watching : New work from Streetwise Opera

This is a review of the premiere of Streetwise Opera’s People Watch

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


21 July

This is a review of the premiere of Streetwise Opera*’s People Watch, which opened Tête à Tête / The Opera Festival at The Place Theatre, King’s Cross, on Tuesday 21 July 2015 at 7.00 p.m.




The mise-en-scène was we, looking at them, looking at us. Beneath a banner that was to be lit differently for a different theme (and most clearly visible in the image that is embedded in the Tweet at the foot of the review), we had The Ligeti Quartet (@LigetiQuartet), dressed as black cats** and on a dais, with sideboard and dresser, and the various performers as when we entered of Streetwise Opera (@StreetwiseOpera), ranged on sundry items of furniture across the stage before us.


Streetwise Opera’s voices and those of The Ligeti Quartet in an integrated ensemble

Photograph by, and by kind courtesy of, Claire Shovelton


Near the opening of Stef Conner’s (@StefConner's) score, we heard strokes in the cello against voices, which gave way to laughing, and for which cellist Val Welbanks provided an ostinato. Right at the start, director Timothy Burke had brought up the sound of the voices, which were talking quite naturally, but there was now a deliberately forced Hee-hee quality to the laughter as it developed, accompanied by hypnotic, circular writing.

After a short pause, a huge laugh (almost alarmingly so, and no longer seeking to be in rhythm with the quartet ?), overwhelmed us, and we became aware that singer Susannah Austin (@SusannahAustin), who had already been noticeable for being dressed in a silken dressing-gown, had stood. With an unfussy, clear voice, she performed against string-writing that seemed vestigial in sounds, the instruments began to pick up the character of her words, and of their cadences. She brought us the words Quiet, and Silent, and whoever she may have represented, there was a Slavonic feel to the instrumental sound :

Susannah Austin, who has risen from within the ensemble to sing

Photograph by, and by kind courtesy of, Claire Shovelton


As Austin sang We keep our peace, the quartet sounded set apart from the tenor of her voice, as a separate strand. She continued, rendering Our reaction is gentle, with an initial threefold repetition of ‘gentle’. As she continued to sing the word, we heard a sound as of keening, and, led by Richard Jones on viola, the quartet built up volume until the chorus joined in, their voices restful in the ensemble. Gentle, Austin urged when the tone became one of yearning, she reflected it, and sat down.

Interjection after the fact :
One is now reminded of the delightful moment of corporate calm, at the end of the filmed sequence in The Answer to Everything (#ATEOpera), where Elizabeth Watts (@LizWattsSoprano) has charmed troubled breasts with a lovely arrangement of Handel’s beautiful lascia ch’io pianga what, after all, Streetwise is all about bringing to people and their lives* ?


Familiar as The Chairman of the Board in #ATEOpera, Rob Gildon, as Gary, heralded a section that parodied t.v. advertisements, with Squirt The Dirt, which closed with a brief rodeo style of transitional theme, and a squeaky tremolo on viola. It was at this stage that we came to appreciate that this was not just one huge living-room, in some sort of group home, but that the central armchairs and sofas were a resource that allowed the cast to move around, and for other faces to come in and out of prominence and form new configurations. A tense, pulsing feel accompanied the realization that Children in Need was on the imaginary screen : Not that again ! came the reaction to the BBC’s big charity campaign.



The post-modern response to seeing natural history on t.v. :
booking a trip on one’s phone to go to see it ?

Photograph by, and by kind courtesy of, Claire Shovelton


The rodeo section recurred, and we were brought to confront the different attitudes about that dog ‘Look at him go !’ from Britain’s Got Talent, before positions switched back, with a tremolo from viola. From ridiculous admiration for the canine to the sublimity of exclaiming It’s so beautiful, and a hypnotic quality to the quartet-writing, with the viola appearing against short repetitive passages in the background it was as if material were in the act of emerging, as we listened.

Dressed for night, like some goddess of sleep, Susannah Austin stands again, and moves to those whom, now that there are spots on them, we notice (also dressed in white) in a group stage left (though there are individuals stage right [one is visible in the first image (above)], whom she later visits, with comfort). The chorus gives a wordless hum : the instruments have a ‘summery’ feel to them, but there are discords in the writing for first violin. Also, a sense as of keening, and with tremolos being played sul ponticello. Lyrical writing for violin is joined by cello, but with a ‘squeaky’ tremolo on viola, and then the quartet gives us bowed harmonic effects, up and down the fingerboard, as Austin sings, again, her soft encouragement.


Fellow singers in white from amongst the Streetwise Opera performers
Photograph by, and by kind courtesy of, Claire Shovelton


A riff is interjected by speech, then repeated, and the tone becomes ironic, and squeaky. The rodeo theme ushers all the voices in, and Austin sits again, before another switch over on stage, the quartet punctuating the vocal exchanges.

The musical mood has gone to melodrama, and, again different reactions to what is seen : It’s just so wrong !, objected one of three women in black, but no one will ultimately turn it off. The chorus sang Beautiful, but with tired undertones, which undercut the word***. The quartet tentatively, through cello and violin, stated material, before a short pizzicato section for the three women, and the re-emergence, after the rodeo phrase, of Gary with Squeaky Shine (which apparently had a testimonial for polishing pets ?).

All stood, to solemn playing, to which a ‘scratchy’ tremolo was added, and we noticed a red coloration to the banner, behind everyone, and with its six silhouetted heads. Not for the first time, a ‘sinking’ sensation, as there was a sliding move down the fingerboard. We heard the words Permanently confined to his home, but with ‘sour’ undertones, and the discord fed into the instrumental writing, as the gold stars on the banner became clearer.

We pick out where the quartet is attempting to establish a theme, as Austin sings Quiet, and the others reply Silent, her words initially on three notes (the first syllable split over a pair), and theirs, si lent, on a falling interval. It is a meditation, with a Sepphardic sound to it, and it turns into a paean, with a recursive sense of ensemble :

What we see, and as we listen, sung with full force, as the banner’s stars show brightly What we make of what we take in, with Austin singing Quiet into the midst of the emotions expressed.

To questioning tones from the quartet, lighting comes on full, and we hear the chorus singing open chords. The three more mobile members of the quartet stand, and silently hold their instruments, as if turned back into china cats. Almost in a round, the choir’s voice and Austin’s mesmerically follow each other, again and again.






When Timothy Burke brings the piece to a close, it is to much and buoyant acclamation, with several standing in the audience. Stef Conner and director / lyricist Bill Bankes-Jones (@billbj) were enthusiastically fêted, and it was all that the ushers could do, as everyone was being clapped off the stage, to try to encourage the audience to leave and make way for the next event in a busy opening night for Tête à Tête...





After-thought :




Though, as composer, the final word should go to Stef Conner :



Stef Conner (pictured with wordsmith, etc., Bill Bankes-Jones)

In its early days, opera entertained the masses and then somewhere along the line people started associating it with classical literature, etiquette, fine dining and posh gloves



End-notes

* Streetwise Opera (@StreetwiseOpera) is an award-winning charity that uses music to help people who have experienced homelessness make positive changes in their lives. It runs weekly and termly music programmes in homeless centres and arts venues across England and Wales, and stages critically acclaimed opera productions.

** Fortunately, one checked with lead violinist Mandhira de Saram (still so dressed – and with what proved to have been vivid rims to her eyes, which had made placing her gaze as she played disconcerting), otherwise that would have read black mice : the concept was apparently that china cats come to life from time to time to comment.

*** Sometimes, as within depression (though that really seems like the wrong word for some people’s experience, which is more like suppression ?), we can know that something is glorious our family or friends, or the natural world – and that we should take joy in it, but we do not, and we cannot :

It is as if the body’s responses are suppressed (to protect it, and us, from engaging with a world beyond us ?). The knowledge, in one’s head, that something is wonderful or in which one should take pleasure (the nagging words of our own, and others’, criticism in the deepest of depression), does not connect with the feelings of the heart (itself under attack at knowing that it does not do as it ‘should’). We sense our confusion and our woundedness (yet even that only partly, not in full aliveness)...



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