Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Inventions 2005: New Music in London

The always adventuresome London Sinfonietta, abetted by the BBC Singers and the new music promotion group, spnm, has put together what looks like an exciting day of workshops and concerts called Inventions 2005 on Saturday 19 February at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The day will focus on composers Simon Holt and David Sawer and showcase a younger generation of British composing talent.

Holt's The Coroner's Report is the second of three works connected with his acclaimed music-theatre piece Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?, describing the mystery of a woman's body found in a tree in the early 1940s. The 2004 ensemble work is made up of eight exhibits from this tale, including 'gold ring' for piano and celeste simultaneously performed by one player(Rolf Hind), 'throat' for alto flute, and 'a spring of belladonna' for solo harp. Rolf Hind is also the soloist in eco-pavan, in which the ensemble echoes the sound of the piano, and the material in the piece echoes itself. brief candles is eight flickering miniatures, some lasting mere seconds, for solo clarinet (Mark van de Wiel).

The works by Sawer explore a fascination with puzzles and pictures. Sounds (sung by the BBC Singers) sets texts from Wassily Kandinsky's album Klange, a collection of Dada-like poems and woodcuts. Picture puzzles provide the inspiration for the title of his most recent work, Rebus, a sonic kaleidoscope constructed from melodic fragments which constantly metamorphose into new patterns. The optical tricks of the 'fantascope' (a 1798 magic lantern, which shocked audiences with images of spirits and demons) gave rise to Cat's-Eye. Images appear and disappear, grow smaller and larger: Sawer says: 'I can imagine the thing was not averse to breaking down'.

London Sinfonietta principal players make solo appearances in the remaining works of both the 6pm and 7.45pm concerts, which will be introduced by video programme notes. Three of the composers featured are involved in the London Sinfonietta's Blue Touch Paper project, which offers time with players to try out new ideas and develop different ways of working. In the world premiere of Mary Bellamy's Within Dreams I, a solo cello (Anssi Karttunen) is suspended high in its register above the ensemble, exploiting the full range of the instrument's capabilities. Tansy Davies' 2004 work neon pits a bass clarinet and soprano saxophone against strings, piano and percussion. The 6.00pm concert contains two miniature works by Anna Meredith: fly-by-night, 'a sort of tiny creepy lullaby', and axeman for electric bassoon (John Orford), in which the composer aims to turn the instrument into a 'wailing, riffing, 1980s, electric-guitar god'.

The UK premiere of James Olsen's Chameleon Concerto presents a kind of 'anti-concerto' for solo violin (Clio Gould) and piano (Rolf Hind) in which the soloists blend into each other and into an ever-changing orchestral background.

We need more of these kinds of events on this side of the big pond. See the complete program on our Calendar page.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1/19/2005