Wednesday, 20 January 2016

At Lunch 2 : Arrangements, augmentations, and other versions [Full Ligeti version]

This is a review of Britten Sinfonia in At Lunch 2 on 19 January 2016

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

20 January
This is a review of At Lunch 2, given by Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on Tuesday 19 January 2016 at 1.00 p.m.


NB This is the original version, but, now that the review is complete, there is an edited one

Britten Sinfonia’s (@BrittenSinfonia’s) programme for At Lunch 2, heard at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH), mixed the eighteenth century (with three arias from cantatas by Bach, and two re-workings of ones by Alessandro Scarlatti¹) with the twentieth (Ligeti and Pärt) and a new commission (Anna Clyne) – one theme being arrangements and other versions, and with the concert’s own running-order altered and augmented (the original place in the order, if different, in shown in parenthesis) :


1 (4) Aria Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not [with its preceding Sinfonia] ~ Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

 2 Due arie notturne dal campo ~ Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725*) arranged by Salvatore Sciarrino (1947–)

 3 Fratres (version for string quartet) ~ Arvo Pärt (1935–)

 4 (1) Aria Gott versorget alles Leben ~ Bach

 5 Continuum ~ György Ligeti (1923–2006)

 6 (7) Aria Tief gebückt und voller Reue ~ Bach

 7 (6) This Lunar Beauty ~ Anna Clyne (1980–)



* * * * *


Dating from Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (BWV 21), a Cantata written by Bach in Weimar (in 1714), the aria that we heard, (1) Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not, was a good opening choice : its accompanying Sinfonia introduced Marios Argiros to us on obbligato oboe, and, as we listened to the aria, the plangent tone of that instrument, beloved of Bach’s later sacred works², was weaving in and out of the texture (as, also, Jacqueline Shave on first violin).

When soprano Julia Doyle made her entry, leaning into the monosyllables of this short text (e.g., in the first two lines, Not, Furcht, and Tod (respectively ‘need’ (or, in that sense, ‘want’), ‘fear’, and ‘death’)), it was with an uncluttered vocal-style. Around all this, giving a stately, steady feel, was Maggie Cole’s harpsichord continuo (and also from Caroline Dearnley on cello, adding weight to the ensemble). As Jo Kirkbride’s programme-notes comment, regarding the last Bach aria in the hour-long sequence, the accompanying instruments ‘suggest a level of torment beneath the calm surface’, so here there were suspensions and mini-cadenzas that punctuated the vocal line.

It is with the initial words, in reference to which the aria borrows its title, that Bach is most concerned, and to which he will have us return : after a moment of attack on Schmerz (‘pain’), the final word in the four-line text, Doyle had to go very high, in re-visiting the opening line, and we ended, as we began, with oboe, and a very definite close.


In Alessandro Scarlatti’s (2) Due arie notturne dal campo (as arranged by Salvatore Sciarrino), possibly pre-dating the Bach work*, Doyle brought out warmer, stronger tone-colours, better suited to Italian than to German.



 The setting was built around accents and a falling scale (other works in the programme were to do the latter), and each half-line of Dove sta / la mia pace was repeated for emphasis. We could see, as well as hear, string-effects being passed from viola (Clare Finnimore) to cello (Caroline Dearnley), and, at the last line of the text, we doubled back for a da capo finish.

The second, shorter, aria fitted a lighter tone, and Doyle’s ornamentation was bright and easy, as exemplified by the portamento on the significant word curo in the first line : Non ti curo, o libertà. On cello, Caroline Dearnley’s playing was vibrant, and (on viola) Clare Finnimore could be heard bringing out the resonance.


Lamentably, the review of The Sinfonia at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHall) [with Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho (1960), played with a simultaneous screening] is still not finished (and is unmanageably overlong already). However, it says what was as true of hearing Arvo Pärt’s version of (3) Fratres (1977) for string quartet (from 1985) : watching performers as they play can bring out what one might otherwise overlook [but please see 5, below], or take for granted, by not being conscious of what they are doing - here, the initial two clusters of pizzicato gestures on the cello, which act as a sort of punctuation before each of nine variations, but by no means invariantly (please see below).



Here, those opening gestures led in a disembodied, echoing tone (also described above), and seeing Dearnley’s spread hand for playing harmonics helped one hear the sounds that she was producing. In the programme-notes, which are the link to (2) the Scarlatti / Sciarrino, it is observed that Pärt ‘employs just a simple scale’ [in Italian, the word just means ladder], and he also had Miranda Dale (second violin) much occupied with a continuous note, to act as a drone - virtually the polar opposite of the plucked, and so almost necessarily brief, notes on the cello ?

Not that Pärt intends to hypnotize us, or the string-players, but it proves harder than one might imagine to keep track of the variations, at important points in each of which (by no means to stay out from under the piece’s influence) the performers ensured that they were together by nods. By around the fifth section, which now sounded uncannily like Russian Orthodox chant, the feeling had become far less aetherial, and spoke rather of richness, with the succeeding pizzicato notes on cello being notably different in tone (all of which, somehow, is presumably indicated by notation ?).

 The next section added even greater resonance, and it and what followed much more resembled a conventional string-sound, before a variation that was again contemplative – with a slight diminuendo, and a more quiet cello pizzicato. Now, right at the end of the work, the section that followed was softer, and with Pärt achieving a very striking spiritual effect on us, through a little rallentando, which then combined with a diminuendo. In the final pizzicato, one could see Caroline Dearnley’s other hand, holding the string (to shorten the duration of the note, one assumed).


For the second Bach aria (originally to have been the first number in the hour-long concert), (4) Gott versorget alles Leben [from the Cantata Es wartet alles auf dich (BWV 187)], the date of composition (1726) is twelve years later (and in the period of works by Bach already referred to²), but what links it is the beautiful writing for obbligato oboe, which leads into that for voice.

 To this setting of a longer passage of verse, accompanied this time just by harpsichord, oboe and cello³, Julia Doyle gave, in her delivery, both clear vocal-tone, and a quality of ‘reaching out’ from - and with - the given text, which made the change in mood at the mid-point, as well as feeling natural, touch us with the sentiment Worries, be gone !, as from the words of another person.


After the concert, someone remarked to the effect that (5) Continuum (1968) was the first piece by Ligeti that she had liked : not only is that comment, in retrospect, actually ambiguous, but there was not time to enquire what others of his compositions she had heard. Besides which, Ligeti was such a varied composer that it might be anything (with works, say, ranging from his Chamber Concerto (1969–1970) (with its important part for harpsichord) to Aventures (1962) and Nouvelles Aventures (1962–1965)). However, this still seemed surprising to learn, possibly because not everyone would have welcomed this aural experience on, as one maybe wrongly gathered (please see above), the first occasion…

If this level of detail is too much (it continues), there is now an edited version, which shortens the time taken on this piece



It had been noticed, earlier on, that the harpsichord had been set up with a microphone above the strings, and what looked like a feedback monitor, underneath it, and pointing towards the strings upstage of it : one knew too little about Continuum (beyond having reminded oneself of it via the link in the above Tweet) to know what, if anything, this might signify in relation to a live performance.

 What did quickly become apparent, though, was that – when principal harpsichordist Maggie Cole had started playing – one least wanted to be aware, beyond the sound, of what was happening on stage (or in the auditorium as a whole) : for it appeared that one could only give listening one’s best by, with one’s gaze directed upwards, actually least trying to concentrate on it. Not wishing to labour what might resemble some Zen paradox, but Less can be more [as in a Sinfonia concert, at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW), with, first, Frank Zappa's The Perfect Stranger] : to have one’s attention not on the instant moment, and rather on absorbing the overall patterns and impressions (from which it felt that the mechanical aspects, revealed visually, served too much as a distraction).


In a book published not long before Ligeti's death, Richard Steinitz (in the couple of pages devoted to Continuum (1968)⁴) starts by telling how it was one of thirty-eight pieces that were commissioned by Antoinette Vischer for her instrument (which, over time, seems to have eclipsed those by the likes of Cage, Berio and Henze), and that it was written for the sturdy ‘modern’ two-manual harpsichord with 16’, 8’ and 4’ stops (specifically not the type since used in period performance). In summary, Steinitz says that, at the correct tempo for the piece, each hand (one on each manual) depresses 16-17 keys per second⁵, and that its genesis was in Goffried Michael Koenig's discoveries in the electronic studio in Cologne : he became Ligeti's mentor (and Ligeti assisted with his electronic work Essay (1957-1958)). The new understanding from which Continuum derived was having found a rate at (and above) which a succession of pitches coalesces as chords, and the pitches are then not distinguishable as a line of melody.

Steinitz then goes on to describe, in general terms (and before talking about the harmonic progressions, and how and in what way they operate), how rhythm operates on three levels (the first being what he characterizes as the incessant ‘clatter’ of the foreground pulses) – it was precisely by being open to the music, and letting it come through (without, as described above, trying to focus overly on it), that what Steinitz analyses in two further paragraphs (which are well worth reading, in context⁶) was audible at the two levels beyond that of 'clatter', one (the second) being the rate at which patterns repeat in the piece, and the other (the third) that at which the choice of pitch changes. (These brief comments had been written after the concert, but before consulting Steinitz's book : Perhaps the piece exists, in this way, in the cycles between and within the cycles : not quite as with a work by Steve Reich, with whose approach one hears different things and in a different way, but as with other works by Ligeti.)


In preparation for hearing Continuum some other time, then, it might be best to practise (or remember, at any rate, to exercise) that relaxation of active awareness, and also to leave reacquaintance with the work until the event. This is on the basis that one can have Too much of a good thing, whereas the less-concentrated, but no less powerful, effects of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto [including the use of harpsichord in the third and fourth movements, marked, respectively, Movimento preciso e maccanico and Presto] make it more susceptible to repeated listening : in tribute to Pierre Boulez (26 March 1925 to 5 January 2016), the link is to his recording with The Ensemble Intercontemporain.

 Whatever others were hearing, and how they chose to listen and what to watch, one necessarily did not know, but the conclusion of the piece brought Maggie Cole a tremendously appreciative round of applause, which saw her return for a further bow.


Finally, after the inordinate amount of space taken on a piece that lasted four minutes… With the reversal that had been announced of the order of the final two vocal pieces, we heard the third Bach aria, before the new commission by Anna Clyne (at the mid-point of a world-premiere tour).

 (6) Tief gebückt und voller Reue [from the Cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (BWV 199)], again, as with the first aria in the revised order (Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not), from 1714, seemed reminiscent of the sound-world of The Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046–1051), especially - as explained in the next paragraph - No. 3 (in G Major) : as is well known, the six instrumental works are so called, because, in 1721 (although they are thought to have been composed earlier), they were presented to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt.


The opening bar of BWV 1048 (as we might call it), which the Sinfonia will be bringing to Saffron Hall in a concert on 15 May, contains just two semi-quavers (as one can see above). They, with the first note of the next bar (a quaver), form a rhythmic and tonal three-note motif (and then, further down the treble stave, it immediately repeats, for the first of numerous times – taking it next up the stave once more, and then down). Although the aria also has, as an obvious feature to the cello part, such a semi-tone ‘dip and back’, it does not have the Concerto’s insistence, albeit a gentle one – as of links in a chain, and making for a higher level of patterning [not wholly dissimilar, dare one say, to the effect of the various levels, as Steinitz calls them (please see above), of rhythmicity that one could discern within Continuum ?].


To how this five-line text had been set, and the honest metaphysics of its words, the Sinfonia instrumentalists assisted Julia Doyle in bringing poise of vocal expression, so that (in the third line) Ich bekenne meine Schuld then balanced against both of the lines that followed (in fact, all of them against each other) : Aber habe doch Geduld / Habe doch Geduld mit mir !. Here, catching Bach’s intention, there was a feint of simply finishing there, with a soft ending, till our hearing a ritornello signalled beginning da capo, and then closing, so that we were plunged back into the words after which it is titled, Tief gebückt und voller Reue.

 These three arias, and the company that they kept, worked very well together - as did our soprano and her fellow musicians !


Concluding the hour of music with (7) Anna Clyne’s This Lunar Beauty (2015), setting W. H. Auden’s poem of that name [the text is here], must have been the right thing to do with the programme, and Anna Clyne is not a stranger to having works appearing in Sinfonia concerts. (She can be heard here, in a pre-concert talk with The University of Cambridge’s Kate Kennedy (@DrKKenney), from the final At Lunch 2 concert, at The Wigmore Hall (@wigmore_hall), on the following day.)

The composition felt to have a Scottish ring to it at times, e.g. with the use of a drone on the viola, but also more generally, in its landscape (which perhaps fits with what Clyne says, in that talk, about having studied music at university in Scotland), and it seemed Nymanesque in a vague way (not inconsistently with using a high soprano voice towards the end). We started with oboe, which had been a linking element in these pieces, then Marios Argiros was joined by Clare Finnimore (viola), and next the two violinists, until all were playing.

One can think of works from the Classical period that did likewise, but, in the last hundred years, it has often enough been a feature in neoclassical and modernist works, too : one purpose that it served was to draw attention to the various instruments (for, whilst we cannot be unaware of Bach’s use of obbligato oboe, the role of the cello or harpsichord is much less prominent, and more subtly part of the voice’s accompaniment). Again (hardly for the first time), Clyne makes the soprano seem more part of the ensemble’s range of voices, which we hear from at various times, such as harpsichord figurations with cello and violin.

Except for the Ligeti [for quite other reasons, already very sufficiently given above], This Lunar Beauty was unlike everything else on the programme, and, on a first hearing, a feat to try to take in - not least because of its unfamiliar text, which (despite its simple appearance) is both densely poetical as well as outright difficult to construe in places, even with later quiet reflection (for example, the second half of the second stanza : the text is here). Amidst a lively part for oboe, which at times was up and down scales / parts of them (which is where Michael Nyman somehow first seemed present ?), or elements of pounding from the harpsichord, and definite in their company, the unhurried, tranquil voice (as of The Moon ?) of Julia Doyle, complete with impressively leaping into the higher register before, with some bending of notes, the work came to close.




End-notes

¹ The dates for Scarlatti (2 May 1660 to 22 October 1725) are wrongly given in the programme as 1685–1757 : the latter are those of Aleesandro Scarlatti's son Domenico (now much more famous ?).

² E.g., towards the end of Part I, in the aria for tenor with Chorus Ich will bein meinem Jesu wachen, in the St Matthew Passion (original version 1727) (BWV 244). (Or the Quia respexit from the Magnificat in D Major (from 1733, after the version (from 1723) in E Flat Major) (BWV 243).)

 ³ In the continuo, one could hear how Bach gave the oboe part shorter note-values than for harpsichord and cello.

⁴ Faber & Faber, London (2003). György Ligeti : Music of the Imagination, pp. 164-166.

⁵ The video of Continuum on YouTube (@YouTube) [where it is called Continuum für Cembalo], to which Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) linked in its Tweet (above, after the introductory paragraph on Continuum), and which simultaneously shows the progress of a piano-roll across the screen, is three minutes and fifty-two seconds, but the actual recording runs to around 3:47 (and is credited as being played by Antoinette Vischer herself – for whom it was written, please see above).

 In the last paragraph of his chapter (op. cit., p. 166)), Steinitz talks about Pierre Charial’s adaptation of the piece for barrel-organ (from 1988). According to him, its recorded performance [in the 1997 Ligeti edition] takes just 3:22 (which is faster than Maggie Cole could possibly have played it), because of ‘the superhuman speed with which it can read the perforated rolls’ : the duration for the piece as heard on YouTube, then, is intermediate between that for the version for barrel-organ and what was likely when Cole played it (Steinitz says that four minutes [are] allowed for human players).

 In a quicker performance (he is referring to Charial’s mechanical adaptation, but the same would tend to be true when heard played, not in around 4 minutes, but on YouTube in 3:42), Steinitz describes two effects (which would, for those who had heard the recording, have put Cole at a relative disadvantage) in his concluding sentence : The headlong tempo creates a splendid ‘coalescing’, whilst the shifting patterns of second-level rhythm are actually clearer.


⁶ One does have a slight hesitation, though, if one carefully reads what Steinitz writes to describe, in percentage terms, what happens to the slowing in the rate at which notes repeat when the score has the player move from alternating between a pair of notes to repetitively playing them (or other notes ?) with a third note. For he writes (ibid., p. 165), When the opening two-note ostinato of G and B flat acquires an additional F, the rate of repetition automatically slows down by fifty per cent. Lovely to see an author / copy-editor at Faber adhering to ‘per cent’, but is the mathematics behind the statistic itself not awry ?

 For, with the initial G and B flat, do the notes not play 50 : 50, but, with the F added, that changes to 33.33 : 33.33 : 33.33 ? Accordingly, unless one mistakes much, is the change in the percentage rate at which either of B flat or G is heard (before and after the F joins them) not by fifty per cent, but, rather from fifty per cent, the calculation of the rate of change being given by : 50 minus 33.33, all divided by 50, then multiplied by 100 (which gives us 33.33 again)... ? Whereas a slowing of 'the rate of repetition [...] by fifty per cent' would surely require the piece to go directly from an alternating pair of notes to a repeating four-note pattern ?




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