On August 27, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, in its first appearance at the Proms, included, along with Debussy’s La Mer and the Tschaikovsky Sixth Symphony, Šu, a concerto for Sheng and orchestra by their compatriot Unsuk Chin, with soloist Wu Wei. The sound of the sheng, which is ethereal, if not down right ineffable, dominates the work. Not only does the soloist plays almost continually throughout the work, but the orchestra’s music grows out of the music of the sheng, expanding and amplifying it. Šu, whose title comes from the name of the ancient Egyptian god of air, begins with high motionless clusters of notes, which expand and move downward in register, developing tremors and vibrations as the work progresses. The whirring motion of these slowly moving harmonies eventually develops into genuinely fast music and then a short sort of thumping dance-like section, which evaporates, leaving reminisces of the beginning, literally echoed by instruments in the back of the hall (or in the case of the Albert Hall, from somewhere in the upper tier of the boxes). The delicacy and beauty of the sound of Šu and the profound mastery of the instrumental writing is remarkable and the impression of the work lasts long in this listener’s memory. Ms. Chin apparently had avoiding writing for Asian instruments until she encountered Wu Wei’s playing, and one can easily understand why the encounter changed her mind. His playing combines overwhelmingly virtuoso playing with irresistibly compelling musical expressiveness. I’ve been trying not to use the word “astounding,” to describe it, but…
On August 20, The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, presented a concert which largely had a Spanish connection, albeit in a rather roundabout way. The concert began with the Overture to the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, set in Seville, and its second half consisted of pieces by Ravel which are contributions, as the program said, to the rich repertoire of Spanish music by Frenchmen, Rhapsodie espagnole, Alborad del gracioso, Pavane pour une infante défunte, and Boléro. The orchestra’s playing in all of this music was elegant, stylish, polished, and just about perfect. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this concert, and more closely allied with the goals of the enterprise which the orchestra is, though, was the bulk of its first half, which included works by the Israeli composer Ayal Adler and the Syrian-American composer Kareem Roustom, both receiving their first UK performances. Adler’s Resonating Sounds presents, across its two movements, the first slower and the second faster and more intense, different realizations of the image evoked by its title: sometimes simple echoes of loud and forcefully jabbing chords, and alternatively immense motionless and rather ominous clusters succeeded by lightly swirling and shimmering textures of micro-polyphony. The title of Roustom’s work, Ramal, is the name of the pre-Islamic arabic poetic metre on which its rhythm is based. The irregular and jagged rhythm underlies a driving and intensely dramatic music which occupies the bulk of the work’s durations is occasionally broken by slower uneasy brooding moments. Although not overtly programmatic, Roustom intended it to suggest “the unsettled state of the world, specifically the devastating current situation in Syria.” Both of these pieces received intensely vivid and rhythmically vibrant performances on the same level as those of the Ravel pieces that followed.
On the ninth of August, the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Mark Elder, included, along with performances of works of Berlioz, Elgar, and Beethoven, the first London performance of Near Midnight by Helen Grimes. In a mood suggested by a poem of D. H. Lawrence, Near Midnight consists of an initial assertive clanging music whose echoes dominate and roll through the succeeding three sections, finally dying out at its end. The piece is thoroughly expertly written and orchestrated with spit and polish, in a thoroughly British manner heavily indebted to and reminiscent of Britten and Knussen.
Late in the afternoon of August 20, preceding the concert of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Collon, performed works written by the winners and the highly commended contestants of the BBC’s Inspire competition for pre-college composers, chosen by a panel of judges including composers Stuart MacRae, Anna Meredith, Martin Suckling, Fraser Trainer, Judith Weir,and Radio 3 Editor Jeremy Evans. The pieces were written for ensembles ranging from duos (La Trahison des Images, for ‘cello and piano, by Harry Castle, and Dithyramb, for bassoon and piano, by Mattew Kitteringham) to chamber orchestra (Mirror, Mirror by Matthew Jackson, Study in Anarchy by Rob Durnin, and Dis-pulsed by Harry Johnstone), with other varied instrumentation in between (Two Cells, for flute, oboe, and bassoon, by Nathaniel Coxon, Underneath for vocals and beat boxer, by Anna Disley-Simpson, The Unteachable Lesson for string quartet, by Edward Percival, Furu Ike Ya? For timpani and tape by Electra Perivolaris, and Two of Three Pieces for pierrot ensemble and percussion by Thomas Carling). There was also one family affair, since among the winners were Pilgrimage, for harp and two percussionists, by Thomas Sparkes, and The Throstle, for soprano, flute, cello, and piano by his older sister Sophie Sparkes, which set a text by their father, Edward Sparkes. The works were given serious and respectful attention and highly polished and eloquent performances. The concert also included the first performance of Darkened Dreams, commissioned by the BBC from Tom Harrold, an alumnus of the Inspire program and a current graduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music. The work, for instruments with a tape part whose source sounds were submitted by listeners of Radio 4’s PM program; it was in fact broadcast immediately on Radio 4. The other performances were recorded for later broadcast on Radio 3, along with works by Jacob Davies, Tammas Slater, Toby Hession, and Kieran Timbrell, which were recorded for the broadcast, but not performed on this concert.
That broadcast, along with the other concerts can be heard at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/b007v097/episodes/player