Tristan Murail Terre d'ombre

Terre d'ombre is a shade of brown frequently used in oil painting because it adds a warm "burnt umber" glow. The colour, for most people, connects to nature, the soil, growth, fertility. Murail's choice of this name for this piece refers to his father, a painter, and to Messiaen for whom colour was inextricably connected to music. "Spectralists" (to use a horrible blanket term) extend the concept so that visual connotations are as valid to the musical whole as any other reference. Just as painters extend the depth of colour by adding density, composers can "paint" by intensifying sound.

Murail's Terre d'ombre, though, also references Scriabin's Prometheus, the Poem of Fire. Scriabin was probably clinically synaesthetic, unlike Messiaen who would have liked to have been, so again the reference is to the concept of colour in music.

Perhaps too much can be made of Murail's fondness for quotation. In many ways it's a good thing because it helps access since it gives those new to the music something to relate to. But it's also misleading because it underplays the originality of the work. God forbid that the anti atonality fundamentalists get hold of Murail and use him to beat up on modern music. These extremists, who don't usually actually listen, are crazy enough, so it's a real threat.

Here Murail uses a massive orchestra, no less than 12 cellos, 8 double basses, a swathe of violas and a panoply of dark brass. Cue the idea of "ombre", earth tones, depth of shading. He uses a large orchestra because that in itself allows a wider range of sound, getting round the problem of fine tuning or de-tuning instruments and working out modulations and micro tones which only the most sophisticated musicians can play. Electronic projection is still an important feature, but it doesn't act like a soloists in a concerto, like the piano part in Scriabin. Rather it works with the orchestra, extending its range. This is a much bigger piece than Gondwana, and more sophisticated.

Terre d'ombre also refers to the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, bringing light to mankind. Murail's treatment is no way as profound and passionate as Luigi Nono's Prometeo (see links to that amazing piece in the subject list on right, below). Nontheless the dark, throbbing resonances do evoke a sense of primeval struggle. Poeme d'Extase it isn't. Note that even fifteen years before this, Murail was quoting passages from Scriabin in Gondwana, with its slowly building mountains of sound, themselves reminsicent of Messiaen's shifting tectonic plates.

Terre d'ombre is a spectacular piece, perfect for large scale auditoriums like the Royal Albert Hall, where its dark richness will wow the audience. The piece is only five years old, and Proms planning has a run in of several years. It is an ideal Proms piece and would be a huge hit. Much fuss has been made of the fact French music doesn't get Proms coverage "because of Boulez" which is a laugh, since even Boulez and Birtwistle were relegated to the "ghetto" of late night slots in recent years. So much modern French music, specifically Maurice Ohana and Dutilleux, is chamber music, not suited to the Proms ambience. Besides, why shouldn't the BBC favour British composers, even if they choose Thea Musgrave et al year after year?

Murail himself uses the metaphor of cooking to explain what he does. With his FM and computer generated calculations, he's working out the "chemistry". Boulez is more like an intuitive cook who just "knows" by instinct and experience. FM allows precise perfection. Boulez doesn't do much electronic/computer enhancement but without him, there would have been no IRCAM, no Ensemble Intercontemporain, no springboard for so many French (and British and German) composers. And in this Murail Immersion day, let's not forget, we heard Hugues Dufourt. (see the link below or use the subject list at right)

Photo of the paint pigment is from www.iconofile.com

Proms postmortem

The Proms are alive and well, but post
mortem is a better term than "de-
briefing" or whatever the buzz word may be. This has been an excellent season, much better than expected. Hooray for Roger Wright – if the next ten years are like this the ghosts of the past will be well buried. No institution survives without growth. The key to growth in classical music, and in the Proms, isn't broadening out and dumbing down, I think, but raising the bar. Listeners who genuinely like music are open-minded enough to listen intelligently. People do continue listening before and after a Prom and gradually expand what they know. Hence total immersion in Messiaen and RVW might have been a lot to take in, but for some it was a good and thorough introduction to be followed up in more detail later. Though the message of St Francis of Assisi to "be humble, listen !" will never work for some ! Hence things like Bach Day and Stockhausen Day worked so well because they assumed a certain degree of dedication from audiences.

What are Proms audiences ? They are amazingly diverse. The point I think is to target sub-groups rather than aim for bland one size fits all. Last year the Michael Ball Prom drew masses of new listeners but they went to other concerts expecting more of the same, and of course they were disappointed as they thought they knew everything. Same with the Gergiev Mahler series at the Barbican, many who went to those came away thinking that's how Mahler "must"be like. So seats may sell, but in the long term will they benefit real musical appreciation ? I don't care if it's elitist, but music isn't a spectator sport to me, it involves something more than passive thrills. Think back to Sir Henry Wood and all those high-minded Victorians (Like Prince Albert) who believed that to be fully human one had to be civilized, and that learning and culture were part of the process. They might have hated Stockhausen but they would probably know why the BBC featured his work so prominently. Instead we seem to live now in times where a blind troll mentality prevails . Kulcha! not culture. Down with what takes thought.

And where are Proms audiences? Lots of people hated the Lang Lang concert, some because they don't like his music, some because he is successful, famous and Chinese. Yes, racism does exist, even if it's covert. So he had a small boy play with him. Again, the critics couldn't understand. But somewhere, in outer Mongolia, or in deepest Manchuria, maybe there's some small kid watching the Proms on TV and thinking "I could do that!" Or even, "I love that music !". In London we can hear any big name pianist any time, but for people way out in the middle of nowhere Lang Lang represents an elusive dream. Of course not all the kids in China will become virtuosi, but they will grow up knowing things like classical music exist and that they are cool, acceptable activities no one will sneer at you for pursuing. In 30 years' time that's where the really astute audiences will be. Thank goodness that there are countries where kids look up to people playing Chopin rather than to drunken footballers abusing women.

The Proms do have the capacity to change the way we listen. Belohlavek's and Boulez's Janacek, for example ! And the idea that we have the stamina to take long concerts with extras after. I also appreciated the Prom's refusal to cave in to insularity – some people may have objected to hearing L'Histoire du Soldat in French but that's their problem, not ours.

New music has always been a Proms tradition, and this season we may/may not have had more, but it was much better presented, backed up often by talks etc, some of which were good, others less so, but at least they were there to help. Some premieres were of course better than others - my favourites Pintscher, Lindberg, Carter, Harvey and even Holt. Things may take time to percolate but they need to be heard in the first place. The point is that really important stuff, like Carter and Boulez, can reward high profile given the chance. And this year new music was taken seriously, backed by talks etc. rather than feared. Henry Wood and co. always supported new music - without them, Elgar, and many others, might not be as prominent as they are today. What the BBC does year round for music in this country is remarkable : it is an industry in itself, supporting composers, musicians, music schools, students and all those involved in music as a living art form.

To my main disappointment: It is important to include popular as well as good quality, but I wonder if we're going too far with Dudamel. His first concert with a grown-up orchestra was awful. I thought at first he was moderating his style to counter criticism but anyone who can make Symphonie fantastique that dull has a problem. I missed the encore, nationalism and flag waving, which was just as well, since that's exactly why I have problems with him . All style, no substance. He's the Sarah Palin of classical music. It's not his inexperience that's worrying but the sort of mob mentality that's propelled him to the top. For years he raised no waves, then suddenly everyone was caught up in a tsunami of euphoria connected in no small way to the emotive connotation of El Sistema and his youth orchestra. In front of a grown-up band, he's nothing. The "Dudamel effect" was created by youtube, downloads and gossip on the internet, not through actual, systematic listening. Often people who don't even know the music "know"! his is the only way to play it. The fervour is like that in a Party Rally – dissent and doubt not permitted. Forget the issues ! Feel the fever ! This in the long term is far scarier than just his conducting. But he'll do well and will establish himself in LA as the new Messiah. At least that's "just" music not international politics.

Mahler 1 Eschenbach Prom 74

Mahler's First Symphony - Eschenbach and Orchestre de Paris, Prom 74

Two days before, Bernard Haitink’s Mahler 6^th with the Chicago Symphony had drawn a capacity crowd. In contrast, this Prom was woefully under-attended. Yet it was by far the superior performance, appealing not to celebrity followers but to those interested in the music.

Mahler’s 1^st Symphony may be familiar but it reveals a great deal about how well a conductor really understands the composer. Eschenbach hears the symphony in the context of Mahler’s entire output, from the very early songs through to the later symphonies. This is perceptive, for some have even suggested that the composer's whole oeuvre is one huge symphony in different stages. This performance thus presumes more engagement from listeners than does the current fashion for loud and bombastic. But a conductor with integrity goes for insight, not short-term popularity. This performance was rewarding because it shed light on where Mahler was coming from and where he was heading.

The songs of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen weave through the symphony for a reason, not merely as decoration. While there’s no need to remember the words exactly, it’s important to remember their spirit – youth, nature, disappointment and ultimately resolution – themes that recur repeatedly throughout Mahler’s work. It's significant that Mahler specified that the trumpets in the introduction should be from a distance. The songs and marches in this symphony aren’t happening in realtime but are filtered through memory, heard from afar, carrying connotations that go beyond literal representation. Thus Eschenbach doesn’t do the marches with brass band brutality. These aren’t “military” marches but memories of marches Mahler heard in childhood, symbolizing many things, like innocence, nostalgia, loss. Hence the Bruder Martin melody. Eschenbach eschews the temptation to play them up for garish impact but makes a more subtle connection to the world of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Thus the menacing storm of the final movement isn’t just an episode, but a kind of psychological working through, as being a teenager prepares a person for adulthood. Mahler’s protagonist is moving on, heading out into the world.

Of all Mahler’s symphonies, the First is perhaps the only one that can survive an arrogant, noisy interpretation, because adolescence involves being full of oneself ! But Eschenbach showed clearly how the symphony is far from one-dimensional.

Second to Last Night of the Proms - Hiroshima and Beethoven

The Last Night of the Proms is notorious because it’s an excuse for jingoistic excess. Wear a silly hat, wave a flag and maybe the cameras will spot you. Then Mom will see you on TV 10,000 miles away. The Second-to-Last Night, though, is the “real” Last Night for music lovers and it’s traditionally observed with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Justly so, for there is no music more symbolic of the Proms ethos than this wonderful symphony. “Alle Menschen werden Brüder !” All men shall be brothers. No wonder it’s the theme song of the European Union. In these troubled times, Schiller’s message is even more relevant. Since this Prom is broadcast worldwide and available online, it will reach wherever technology permits – a universal experience that crosses boundaries, bringing people together for a moment of coimmunal celebration.

A pity then that the performance was so lacklustre. If ever there was an opportunity to let a performance rip open with exhilaration this would have been it ! The City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus are so well versed they managed to create a frisson, but the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under their chief conductor Gianandrea Noseda, were rather laboured and sedate. The pressure of being so high profile must be intimidating, but this music is so vivid that it hardly matters whether it’s note perfect, as long as it conveys the sense of joyous enthusiasm. One of the most interesting performances I’ve heard was by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, some of whom are as young as ten years old. Technically they weren’t brilliant, but they understood the radical message of Schiller’s text and why Beethoven set it with such affirmation.

The baritone, Iain Paterson, was impressive, which was good, for his part dominates the other soloists despite the aesthetic that shapes the ensemble. His voice filled the stadium-like acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall with ease. Still, the Choral Symphony never fails to pack a punch and the atmosphere was so charged with a sense of occasion that when the capacity audience of 7500 people roared approval, it was quite an experience.

Wagner’s Prelude from Parsifal can create an aura, like dawn, before a large programme, but here it was too studied to create any sense of anticipation. This might be fatal in an opera performance, but at this Prom, it was followed by two relative rarities, Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, segued without a break into Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang. Yet again, it was the music that made an impact, rather than the way it was realised. Noseda’s right and left hands rarely diverge, favouring slow, imprecise gestures that emphasise the stretch of lines rather than the structure. This worked rather well with the Penderecki piece with its prolonged low humming and circular “wind” themes, sounds that are eerie because they are mechanical and unrelenting. If the horror in the piece was lost, merging it with Beethoven’s lament “Sanft wie du lebtest hast du vollendet.” gave a rationale to the muted treatment. But surely no-one can possibly suggest that being blown up at Hiroshima was “a gentle ending” ?

The picture above looks innocent doesn't it ? But it's the image of someone who had been standing against a wall at the moment of impact in Nagasaki. He was pulverised into nothing but the blast burned his outline onto the concrete. The photo was taken by Yosuke Yamahata, a photographer who was actually there in the aftermath, the fires still burning. The photos we usually see are "official" released by the Occupation Forces. Yamahata shows the real thing, as it happened. Years later he died of cancer caused by radiation poisoning.

Now you see why I can't stand The Last Night of The Proms.

Exclusive Furtwängler discovery ! Beethoven 9

Genuine spooky Twilight Zone mystery! One day, while working in the UK's Public Record Office archives (now known as the National Archives) on a completely different subject, I keyed in the wrong file number on the computer. That's not easy as each subject has different codes, so this was really bizarre. If you believe in ghosts...... When the file appeared it was a file on Wilhelm Furtwängler!!! Dating from 1946, original documents, some never used in publication. Among the denazification papers and other official bits were hand written testimonies from ordinary people who had attended his concerts in the dark days of the war. "Never shall I forget", wrote one man, "When the conductor entered, the audience stood up as if they were one man....I had the definite impression that the audience felt itself at one with the man who had managed to resist the usual pressure coming from above, and express their gratitude that all was not lost." These audiences were not Party followers but "ordinary people for whom concerts were "Der Besucher zu einer Feierstünde" (untranslatable) that provided them an opportunity to lift themselves above the emptiness the Nazis had caused. Our wings were clipped. Yet music contains so much that cannot be contained or falsified. I can hardly believe that a Beethoven or a Mozart or a Haydn would have upheld party ideology".... At that time, he adds "A Furtwängler concert meant as much to me as a church service"

There is a famous film of Furtwängler conducting during the war. Of course it's propaganda - the actors in the audience had to look happy or they'd end up in some KZ. But real, cultured Germans knew their Schiller and Beethoven. They hardly needed reminding of Schiller's Enlightenment values, or Beethoven's opposition to Napoleon. "ALLE MENSCHEN WERDEN BRŰDER !" Loud and clear !!!! That was lost on most of the Party Hacks in the film, but not on Goebbels, who was educated enough to know. So even in the moment of his "triumph" over the conductor, he must have realized, deep down, that Furtwängler was having the last word.

Hérodiade Fragmente - Matthias Pintscher Prom

Matthias Pintscher was born only in 1971 but his music has already made waves. Boulez conducted his Osiris this May in London and Boulez  doesn't conduct things that aren't worth doing. Hérodiade Fragmente was premiered by Abbado in Berlin in 1999 with Christine Schafer : not minor league ! Of all the "new" music in this year's Prom season this was easily the most intriguing - listen to the re-broadcast.

The text is to Mallarmé's epic poem, a fin de siècle drama of sexual repression and undefinable longings. "J'attends un chose inconnue" sings the soprano. Pintscher leaves the line unadorned, the voice alone and unsupported. It's the still, silent heart of the piece. Read the whole poem to get the full context. Hérodiade is a girl surrounded by sensual excess, which fascinates and repels her. Pintscher focuses solely on her dialogue with the mirror, intensifying the surreal mood. The vocal line is sensual, lovely sighing vowels, but emotions are cut off in sudden cries, their import too much for the girl to handle. But the mirror doesn't shirk. Pintscher's orchestral writing is superb. The mirror takes on a powerful life of its own, commenting and reflecting what words can't express. The strings shimmer, dense and opaque, a smooth hard surface that reflects without relenting. It seems still, and calm. But then the music shatters into jagged, angular staccato. Glass is fragile, it can break into lethal shards. Pintscher also writes eerie circular figures, like the sounds of wet fingers rubbing on glass. It's spooky yet childlike, reminding us how young the girl is. Eschenbach gets wonderfully subdued playing from the Orchestre de Paris - long, barely audible humming, even from the brass, which is quite a feat. This captures the suppressed emotion in the poem, feelings so painful they can only be whispered at. It's beautiful, yet sinister. As the girl's "froides pierreries" drop away in "les sanglots supremes et meurtris", the music explodes in wounded sobs, the percussion ringing bells that could either be celebration or calls of alarm.

Mallarmé knew he was entering dangerous new territory with this poem. He needed symbols that were oblique, to "paint , not the thing itself but the effect it produces". So Pintscher's music profoundly reflects the spirit of the poem - like a mirror, quiet but unflinching.

Review of Mahler 1 will follow shortly, watch this space.

Messiaen St Francis Assisi Prom 70

The first two full reviews of St Francis of Assisi, Messiaen's masterpiece, Prom 70. Mark's is on boulezian, see link on right and mine is here

http://www.musicomh.com/classical/proms/2008-70_0908.htm

St Francis of Assisi is radically different from conventional opera, but that’s exactly why it’s exciting. This performance was so good that its 5 hours flew past in a blaze.

Metzmacher conducted this cast and choir in Amsterdam in June. In the staged production, by Pierre Audi, the orchestra was fully visible. The set was minimal, just a tangle of black crosses. This illustrates how the opera “works”. It’s orchestral music with voices, rather than the other way round. The monks sing in regular cadences, like chants, rarely far from conversational mode. Their lives are spartan, but around them, the orchestra creates glorious panoramas of light and colour. Like the monks, we can’t see Heaven, but can hear it in the music, and it’s all around, infusing the opera with exuberant spirit. Even by Messiaen’s standards, the orchestration is inventive, with unusual instruments and techniques, so the sounds are elusive, making you listen more acutely, which is, perhaps the message of the whole piece. There are three ondes Martenot, using the natural oscillation of sound waves to create music out of “empty” space. The Angel, too, materialises out of thin air. “Tu parles à Dieu en musique”, it sings, you speak with god through music. ”Entends la musique de l’invisible”. The orchestra played the Angel’s Viol music with such gossamer delicacy that it seemed to float, in an unworldly plane. Concepts too difficult to grasp rationally can be expressed obliquely through music. That’s why Francis tells the monks to study birds. They speak without words.

God himself speaks through the massed choir, in the mystical scene where Francis receives the stigmata. It’s a magnificent, multi-layered piece that’s very difficult to carry off, as Messiaen wanted to create the effect of light and sound flying forth in different directions and at different speeds, but Metzmacher achieved it, combining precise discipline with ecstatic, exuberant timbre. Moments like this show how much Stockhausen earned from Messiaen in terms of celestial vision, and the idea of sound moving through space.

Heidi Grant Murphy was the shimmering voiced Angel, and Rodney Gilfry sang St Francis. He sings for about 3 hours, and over a wide range, hovering like an interface between the monks’s cadences and the ecstasy in the orchestra. It’s heroic. This will be one of the high points of his career. Hubert Delamboye’s Leper was sung with vivid dissonance, suddenly soothed when Francis cures him with a kiss. The 200 strong choir were very well-prepared, singing extremely complex parts with perfect precision. Full honours, though, to Metzmacher and the Hague Philharmonic for vibrant playing that brought out the translucent glories in this highly original music.

There weren't many people at this Prom but those who were there were dedicated, Several curtain calls, as if going home might break the spell

Stravinsky Jurowski Firebird Prom 68

Stravinsky’s The Firebird, written a mere 4 years after Kashchey The Immortal, inhabits an altogether different plane. While Rimsky-Korsakov’s music embellishes the vocal line, Stravinsky’s floats free. It “is” the drama. The ballet evolves from the music rather than the other way round. Music for dance has to respect certain restraints, so it’s necessarily quite episodic, but Stravinsky integrates the 21 segments so seamlessly that the piece has lived on, immortal, as an orchestral masterpiece. Vladimir Jurowski is still only in his mid 30s but has established a reputation for intelligence and sensitivity. Watching him conduct this piece was instructive : he moves with the grace of someone who understands how this music connects to dance. His gestures were understated, yet elegant, his left hand fluttering to restrain the sweep of the strings and keep the tone transparent. This pinpointed how Stravinky wrote cues for physical movement into the music itself. Circular woodwind figures translate into pirouettes, flurries of pizzicato into rapid en pointe. Dancers must hear levels in this music closed to the rest of us, but Jurowski’s intuitive approach helps us appreciate its depths.

The Firebird is a magical figure which materializes out of the air, leading the Prince to Kashchey’s secret garden. Unlike the ogre, the Prince is kind and sets the bird free. He’s rewarded with a magic feather. This time the Princess and other captives are liberated by altruistic love. It’s purer and more esoteric, and Stravinsky’s music is altogether more abstract, imaginative and inventive. Jurowski gets great refinement from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he’s forged a very close relationship in only a year of being their Principal Conductor. The solo part for horn, for example, plays a role in the music like that of a solo dancer. Textures around it need to be clean as they were here, so its beauty is revealed with poignant dignity. The rest of the orchestra plays barely above the point of audibility, until the flute enters carrying the horn’s melody. Later there’s more magic, when the double basses and cellos are plucked quietly, building up towards the crescendos which sound for all the world like the joyous tolling of great bells. In the finale, trombones and trumpets hail the moment of liberation. The trumpeters stand upright, so their music soars above the orchestra, projected into the auditorium with superb, dramatic effect.

The picture above is Léon Bakst's design for the Firebird in Fokine's production of the ballet in 1910. Please see the full review at

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2008/09/prom_68_russian.php

Kashchey the Immortal - Prom 68

Kashchey is a gnarled old ogre who imprisons a beautiful young princess in his gloomy underworld. It’s classic psychodrama. Kashchey has supernatural powers, so how can the Princess be saved ? This Prom paired Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchey The Immortal with Stravinsky’s The Firebird, contrasting two resolutions to the fairy tale that’s captured Russian imaginations for centuries.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s short opera focuses on multiple relationships. Kashchey is immortal, but he has a daughter, Kashcheyevna, who holds the secret to his death. She’s just as cold and conniving as he is but she falls in love with the Prince. The Storm Knight brings all four of them together, and the Princess’s love triumphs. Kashcheyevna weeps, and her tears break the spell that makes Kashchey invincible. Love conquers all, yet again. It’s simple but affords opportunities for lushly Romantic musical effects. Music as pictorial as this illustrates so well that meaning can be visualized even if you don’t speak Russian. Kashchey’s music is shrilly angular, evoking his harsh personality as well as the traditional way he’s portrayed, as a skeleton, the symbol of death who cannot actually die. The Storm Knight is defined by the wild ostinatos that accompany him, even though he’s more of a plot device than a character. Some of the most inventive music, though, surrounds Kashcheyvna. When she sings, there are echoes of Kundry, or even Brünnhilde. Harps and woodwinds seem to caress her voice, so when her iciness melts, we sympathize. While the other roles verge on stereotypes, this role is more complex, and Manistina impressed.

Rattle Wagner Messiaen Turangalila Prom 64

Log onto boulezian. blogspot thru the link at right. It's Mark's review of Prom 64, Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Wagner and Messiaen. It's one of the best pieces of music writing I've come across in ages. This is what music writing should be! This performance was wonderful - get out your tape machines for posterity's sake.

Because Turangâlìla is such a panorama, taking in Hollywood, Hindus and Peruvians, Wagner and Gurrelieder, it’s easy to assume it’s all surface Technicolor. At its première a critic heard only “a tune for Dorothy Lamour in a sarong, a dance for Hindu hillbillies”. At this Prom, Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic proved conclusively how inventive it really is.

Rattle paired the Prelude from Tristan und Isolde with the Liebestod. Often that’s a risk as it can leave you longing for the singing, but Rattle had thought the two parts through in orchestral terms. He makes a case for hearing the opera as "music", on its own terms. Here, the surging waves of sound "are" the message, not background. He shows how fundamental the flute part is, weaving throughout, commenting without words. The transition was particularly well blended, one part fading gradually into the next, like a fade in film gradually coming back into full color focus. It is cinematic – how Wagner might have loved the movies !

Wagner is an appropriate curtain raiser for Messiaen's Turangâlìla. As a young boy, Messiaen studied Pelléas et Mélisande, and also inherited the long-standing French fascination for the exotic and "oriental" – think Pierre Loti, Ravel, Maurice Delage and the Impressionists studying Japanese painting. Wagner was by no means the dominant influence on Messiaen, but his oceans swells and undercurrents live on in Turângalìla, as Rattle so clearly demonstrated, stretching the string lines with soaring, surging magnificence. Messiaen's "trajectory", to use a favorite Boulez expression, comes not from conventional symphonic development but from thematic ideas, so this oceanic surge is important.

For the first time, I really understood the sixth section, Le Jardin du sommeil d'amour. It's slow, almost a relief after the hectic, inventive fifth section, and has its longueurs. But maybe that's what Messiaen was getting at. The lovers are together when they're asleep, in dreams, when the moon pulls the tides that create the waves in the ocean. It's not as spectacular as the glorious Joie du Sang des étoiles, but as with so much Messiaen. he's at his most profound when he’s quiet.

The Tristan und Isolde concept had even more personal meaning for Messiaen. He had fallen in love with Yvonne Loriod, but he was married, and, as devout Catholics, they could not marry until released by his wife’s death. He "was" Tristan and she Isolde, and Turângalìla is their mystical union. Hence the significance of the “paganism” in Turângalìla. Messiaen was fascinated by non-western music, adopting ideas such as the Indian deçi-tâla rhythms which feature in this piece. Anyone who’s seen Hindu erotic sculptures can appreciate the concept of sex as a form of spiritual enhancement, that breaks past the restraint of western moral convention. So Turângalìla isn’t meant to be polite “Good Taste”. Those sassy brass passages and almost Gershwin-like punchiness are essential keys to the spirit of the work. The famous "statue" theme on brass and clarinet "Flower" themes are "male" and "female". No wonder Rattle placed such emphasis on how they intertwine, flirting with each other, so to speak. Pierre-Laurent Aimard's piano and Tristan Murail's ondes Martenot form a second pair of relationships within the whole, connecting to percussion and winds, picked up by harp and strings. Aimard's long solo passages are the unspoken "heart", rather like the flute in Tristan und Isolde.

The Berlin Philharmonic played with extraordinarily beautiful, transparent textures – how the brass fanfares shone ! This orchestra can be relied upon for superlative orchestral colour, so what was even more impressive was how the Berliners took to Messiaen, whose music is so very different to their mainstream core repertoire. Somehow Rattle inspired them so they played with free-spirited exuberance, capturing the exhilarating intoxication so crucial to this composer’s idiom. The “bad taste” of Turângalìla may shock, but it’s the exaltation of spirit that connects mortals to the divine.

Turângalìla was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky and premiered by his protégé Leonard Bernstein who hated the piece and refused ever to conduct it again. Perhaps it’s fortunate as he probably didn’t understand its internal architecture. Nagano and Salonen have a firm grasp of the energetic muscularity that animates the piece, but Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic exceeded all expectations, marrying technical perfection to electrifying verve. This performance truly expressed how original and radical Messiaen really can be.

Ondes Martenot - why bad taste is OK

Everyone knows the Ondes Martenot from Bela Lugosi movies. One of the reasons Messiaen's Turangalila puts people off is the Hollywood connotations. The instrument is bizarre, but it's unique in that it uses sound waves and oscillations : an instrument that could not have been conceived before modern technology. Sound out of "empty" space ! No wonder it excited Varèse, Jolivet, Milhaud and even Maurice Ravel who went to Ondes Martenot concerts. It symbolised all that was modern, opening new possibilties.

This was an instrument made in heaven for Messiaen. It expresses his other worldly visions, exotic, and elusive. Yet it's not dreamy. Played well, it's assertive. There's a perfume called Parfum de Therese which is sensual but has a kick of pepper. Like perfume, the Ondes Martenot floats in the air, ever changing, making us actively "follow the scent". Turangalila may sound dated if we think of it solely in terms of Hollywood. Yet in 1946, Hollywood did symbolize exotic, optimistic dreams - especially after the privations of war in Europe. But "Bad taste" is a western, middle class constraint. Lose hangups, says Messiaen, and be liberated. Enjoy without guilt or being judgemental, God is in all things, however odd.

Make a point of listening to the broadcast of Prom 64 Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmoniker. Amazing, the best Prom so far and probably Concert of The Year. And I know Messiaen pretty well. This convinced me at last about the Ondes Martenot. Tristan Murail played the part on Rattle's ancient recording but this was completely on another plane. What's good about the broadcast too, is that there's a talk on the instrument by another famous player, Thomas Bloch. The instrument is live, well and thriving ! He mentions Fred Frith , my hero, one of the best improvised music guys around.

There's a lot on Youtube about the Ondes Martenot, including a very long demonstration of playing technique. But also search on Turangalila desarollo. It's an animation using paintings of the 1920's and it's genuinely creative and original.

Metzmacher on Messiaen St Francis

"Music is the perfect language for expressing ideas which can't be easily grasped", says Ingo Metzmacher. Metzmacher's whole career has focussed on how music, however new and unusual, expresses thought and feeling. His credentials are impeccable. Two years ago I met him at a reception. Everyone was fussing around Matthias Goerne, who was the star. Metzmacher was alone in a corner, unnoticed. "But you are a huge star, too" I asked. "That's OK", he replied, "It is the music that matters"

He conducted Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi in Amsterdam this year to great acclaim so Prom 70 will be special. It's six hours of mind blowingly glorious music (with intervals). But this isn't so much an opera in the usual sense."Yet that's the wonderful thing", says Metzmacher. "Messiaen is taking his time to explore ideas deeply. Nowadays life is so fast, and there's constant change around us. So Messiaen is like a wonderful harbour which gives us space to think." It doesn't really demand superhuman stamina from listeners. "Listen with open ears, open hearts and open minds" he adds. This music moves "like statues", he adds, which might not move themselves, but which move us as we contemplate them. "If you go into the countryside, into nature", he adds, "it's silent, and nothing much seems to happen, but there‘s a lot going on".

Metzmacher explains how St Francis works. Please see

http://www.musicomh.com/classical/features/metzmacher_0808.htm

RVW is Chinese ! Prom 55 Erhu

The erhu is a Chinese bowed instrument, with a resonating box, a bit like a western violin, but more plaintive and "liquid". It's exquisitely expressive, and can sustain extremely long legato. Classical Chinese music is primarily chamber music, and for private reflection, rather than public show, though the erhu is also a folk instrument, once played on the streets by blind beggars. In ensemble, erhus are often accompanied by flutes, lutes, and dulcimers. It was quite difficult to find a decent sound bite, as most of the youtube stuff is seriously horrible playing. But here are some clips. If I could figure how to upload stuff off CD, you'd really hear what the erhu can do !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz1YMjLwExE&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz1YMjLwExE&feature=related

Now listen again to The Lark Ascending. Because it's familiar, it's fashionable for smart types to sneer at it. But listen to the Lark with completely fresh ears, and hear how original it really is. There are erhu melodies which sound very similar (except I couldn't find them on youtube) Just a bit more spare and pentatonic, and RVW could have been writing Chinese music. Given that Chinese music is undergoing a massive revival, there's lots of spoofs of western music using Chinese instruments. The Lark Ascending would translate perfectly to erhu. Obviously RVW had no idea about Chinese music, but it's a bit of a myth that he was writing English folk music in this piece. England became urbanized and industrial long before the rest of Europe, and folk music is robust stuff. In this Prom, it was played by two performers outside the cynical school of thought that treats RVW as cowpat yokel. Akiko Suwanai and Susanna Mälkki, soloist and conductor, both come to The Lark without preconceptions, and hear it as pure music, without connotations. The result was playing of vivid freshness, the violin soaring free and fluid, almost painfully graceful, like a bird in flight. Unbelievably high timbre, pure as clean air. Perhaps RVW "heard" it as nostalgic and idyllic, but such things are by no means exclusive to English or western culture. Now listen again to the erhu clips and hear the correspondences.

Pairing The Lark with Ravel's Shéhérazade was also inspired. Ravel is consciously writing about "other worlds", in the grand French tradition of exoticism. It's a deliberate attempt to explore new colours and textures. Could RVW have written something so magical had he still been constrained by Stanford and Parry ? EXCELLENT Prom and much more unusual and thought provoking than you'd expect. Listen again ! RVW is less "English" than we think.

Prom 34 Il Tabarro

Ruth Elleson writes : "Although it's often labelled as a melodrama, Tabarro is more subtle than that – a study of unfulfilled, rootless people – and even besides the obvious orchestral sound-effects like the boats' horns and out-of-tune barrel-organ, the musical scene-setting has an impressionistic colour palette unmatched anywhere else in Puccini's canon. This strong and richly evocative raw material gives the opera an advantage in holding its own when scenery and costumes are stripped away and the piece is presented in concert form, as it was here." Please see

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2008/08/prom_34_puccini.php

Prom 48 Mahler 5 Gürzenich

This Prom was supposed to replicate the premiere of Mahler's Fifth Symphony on October 18th 1904 using the same orchestra, the Gürzenich of Cologne and the same programme (with updates). This is a pic of the front page of the original booklet. The critics of 1904 hated the piece. "The train of thought is as incomprehensible as the style is enigmatic" said one, while another praised the audience for hissing at the "shadowy labyrinths" of Mahler's mind. Another said "Mahler now stands alone as an enemy of culture". Whatever the purpose of this replica Prom, it shows that even firm favourites like Mahler 5 were once derided for "dissonances and dreadful oddities".

But one review, in Munich, was more analytical. "The bizarre should never deter one when judging a work : look at Berlioz", he said. ""What people consider to be disconcerting is for me the composer's most delightful characteristic". ..."only a thorough study of the score could give an exact idea of the ....eminent refinement of the orchestration". Pretty perceptive for a first hearing, since current performance practice emphasises the intricate detail. Mahler was quite specific about it being Kammermusikton, chamber music sound, where small units function distinctly and interlock to create the whole. Markus Stenz has done his homework. This performance showed how valuable it is to "listen" to what a composer is trying to say, rather than jazz things up to wow the crowds. Earlier this year I heard Philippe Jordan conduct Mahler 5 after a Mozart piano concerto. Bingo ! The combination showed how Mozart and Mahler, in their own ways composed with intelligence and clarity, adventure and subtlety. If you don't know why I dislike Dudamel's "style" listen to his recording of this symphony. Or better not....

Prom 47 Janacek Osud

So what if the Proms don’t do fully staged operas ? If anything this performance of JanáÄ?ek’s Osud proved the benefits of presenting opera shorn of decoration. Jiří BÄ›lohlávek is changing the way JanàÄ?ek is being heard in this country. His Excursions of Mr BrouÄ?ek revealed the magic of the work as never before. Now he does the same with Osud. What he demonstrates is how closely the music and words follow similar syntaxes. These cadences grow specifically from the Czech language. JanàÄ?ek's music rose from “speech rhythms”. He notated speech and was fascinated by its variations. So change the language and the distinctive patterns are lost. Hearing Osud in English removes the sharpness of the original, and breaks the connection between words and music. BÄ›lohlávek restores JanàÄ?ek’s context.

Osud isn’t as popular as Kàt’a Kabanova, Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen because it isn’t conventionally dramatic and doesn’t tell a story. But don't judge Osud in those terms. The composer wrote a lot more music than opera and he didn't write for the UK market. The plot is bizarre, as if JanáÄ?ek is acting out his inner frustrations. Anyone reading the composer's correspondence will recognize the recurring themes : his mistreatment of all the women in his life, his obsession with Kamila Stösslovà and the idea of having a child by her, which also relates to the end of his fallow periods as a composer. The pic shows the composer and Kamila hanging out at a spa one hot summer day in 1919). It’s not a roman à clef, though, and shouldn’t be taken too literally, except perhaps for its vague insights into the composer’s psyche. Yet listen to Osud as an orchestral fantasy with singers and choir, and the whole perspective changes.

BÄ›lohlávek’s pacing was deft. The constant upward and downward cadences flowed naturally, the way speech flows up and down. Osud is propelled not so much by its plot as by this sense of movement, the rising notes like “questions”. It’s no coincidence that JanàÄ?ek gives Živnỳ such long monologues. He’s talking, not showing off his coloratura skills (or whatever the male equivalent may be). And it’s “normal” speech not histrionics, even though it was sung. It’s a big part, for Živny is the composer’s voice as it were. That’s why I was so impressed by Å tefan Margita. He understands how the part works in relation to the whole. It’s written so the voice is ever pushed into upper registers. Živnỳ’s underlying strain and tension are written into his music. You don’t need word for word or false passion : character is built into the music and interpretation grows out naturally from within. There’s also a lovely sensual edge to Margita’s voice which also indicates Živnỳ’s erotic, wilful nature. Nice, and subtly expressed.

Similarly, we know Míla’s mother goes mad, but her “mad scene” comes from within the music rather than through exaggerated volume. Rosalind Plowright was impressive vocally and emotionally, all the more so because she looked so composed ! In the broadcast, Amanda Roocroft described Míla as a bit vacant. It’s true, in the sense that she’s just a projection of JanáÄ?ek’s idealized image of Kamila Stosslovà, in his opinion, a passive, put upon victim. But what attracted Živnỳ to her in the first place? A bit more colour might have helped. The minor parts were pungently sung, those sharp consonants shot out like staccato.

Members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra aren’t, for the most part, Czech speakers, but BÄ›lohlávek gets idiomatic playing from them. The orchestration came alive with this pungent playing, brassy in the best sense of the word. Like the voices, a slight shrillness at the top highlights the underlying mood of discontent in the opera. It’s called Osud, after all, “fate” or “destiny”, that moves inexorably, against our will. Hence pizzicato passages which sound hollow and wooden, which BÄ›lohlávek let unfold quietly, without adornment, just as in Živnỳ’s monologues where the orchestra falls silent while he sings. The keyboard parts were also refined, their spareness symbolic. The organ part in the Third Act is written with great subtlety. Instead of big, booming sonority, the organ interjected comments, like an otherworldy, invisible member of the orchestra, sometimes flutelike, sometimes like a horn. In the libretto, Živnỳ plays the piano. In this Prom, the orchestra’s pianist can be seen, surrounded by other musicians, yet playing alone. At the very end, the music ends suddenly, the last notes unfinished, frozen mid-air. On recordings, it can be missed, but in this Prom, BÄ›lohlávek made sure it carried dramatic impact. Who needs staging when the orchestra is this well prepared ?

The Prom actually started with Dvòrak’s Slavonic Dances op 46. These were lovingly played but served mainly to make us appreciate JanàÄ?ek all the more.

Here's the link to the full review :

http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2008/Jul-Dec08/prom47_2108.htm

Prom 37 Dudamel

Why have I left it to the last minute to listen to the repeat broadcast of Gustavo Dudamel's Prom ? Dudamel was the triumphant sensation of the 2007 Prom season. It was the hottest ticket in town, and I had a freebie but I passed it on to someone else who had no preconception at all. Again why ? I first heard Dudamel when he won the conducting contest at Bamberg in 2004 . That was the first year the competition was held so it wasn't as well established as it is now. Dudamel was good and deserved to win. But almost immediately he was taken up by big recording companies and marketed like the Messiah. He appeared at the Proms in 2005 and 2006 and was received well enough, but with nothing like the hysteria that greeted the 2007 Prom, when he conducted the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. The Venezuelan "sistema" is a brilliant idea and deserves support. And of course they were fun to hear, with their enthusiasm. But separate that emotional clout from actual artistic achievement.....That's why I chickened out. Not to worship Dudamel is now a crime. But if I'm less than enthused, it's not because I don't like him. On the contrary, I care enough to worry about what the adulation might lead to.

My concerns may be esoteric but they're still valid. The media does influence how we judge things, and shape what we think, like it or not. There's nothing at all wrong with having a good time and being excited, but just as junk food gives a quick high, it's not long term nutrition. Showmanship for its own sake is all very well but that's not all there is to good music. A few Big Macs will not kill you, but getting into a habit will. The danger with "Dudamel effect" is that we'll become inured to "instant gratification" performance style. Perhaps I'm still upset about Gergiev's Mahler which blitzed London audiences earlier this year. I generally like Gergiev and actually know his Mahler from Rotterdam. The Barbican had the sense to bill the series as "Gergiev's Mahler" for Mahler's Mahler it sure wasn't. Again, why not ? No one needs to follow form, and it's better to think through things as new. But this was wilfully, crassly distorted : Mahler for people who hate the composer. Fun, yes, but not good for music in the long term. In the space of weeks, Gergiev set back Mahler practice by forty years. Indeed, the way dissenting views were suppressed upset me much more than anything - it was cynical and corrupt. (Not the Barbican, thank goodness - they had the sense to promote it with a veiled warning).

So this 2008 Dudamel Prom ? Potentially another rave - Ravel's Le Valse, the flamboyant Martin Frost and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique which could wake the dead and have them dancing. Milk Berlioz too much and the deluge would be so great we'd drown. Instant cheese! To Dudamel's credit, he didn't. If anything this was understated and restrained, even the demonic sections. So what if it wasn't the heart-on-sleeve passion that people expect from Berlioz? There are many different types of passion and there's a lot more to Berlioz than cliché. There wasn't much insight in this fairly basic reading, but at least it shows Dudamel isn't swallowing the hype his PR machine is churning out. Which is more than can be said for Gergiev!

Here is a link to an article by Andrew Clark in the FT.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b4d1a71c-6a17-11dd-83e8-0000779fd18c.html

Prom 40 JanáÄ?ek Boulez

Contrary to popular assumption, JanáÄ?ek wasn’t “folkloric” per se, much as he loved his Moravian heritage. Boulez’s perceptive approach shows how inventive and original JanáÄ?ek’s music can be.

After the revelatory From The House of the Dead in 2007, it will come as no surprise that Boulez has very special insights, which grow from studying what the composer actually wrote, rather than following received wisdom. No artist with integrity can copy, and what there is of tradition in JanáÄ?ek is of very recent vintage. Boulez’s ideas are shaped by the music itself, in particular the creative explosion of JanáÄ?ek’s final decade. Significantly, Boulez came to JanáÄ?ek through reading the score of The Diary of One Who Disappeared, arguably the beginning of that surge of inspiration. The Diary is an extraordinary work. It blends magic, lyricism and explicit sexual menace, complete with otherworldly off stage voices. Like the tenor, JanáÄ?ek was embarking into the unknown.

With its confident opening fanfare, the Sinfonietta is dramatic. In the Royal Albert Hall it was visually stunning, for the 13 brass players stood up in a row : trumpets and horns catching the light, glowing like gold. Yet what was striking about this performance was how subtly it was achieved. Noise alone doesn’t mean passion. JanáÄ?ek played down extremes of volume for a reason. This brass was bright and lucid, not brutalist, leading naturally into sweeping “open spaces” heralded by the winds. This piece was written for athletes celebrating the birth of the new Republic, so this clean vernal playing beautifully captured the spirit of optimism. Boulez understood context. The sassy, punchy turns were there like echoes of a military band en fête. Not violent, but impudent and full of joy.

This combined well, with Capriccio, written for a left handed pianist and small ensemble. It’s as playful, lithe as a cat. The mock heroic passages in the second part, and the deadpan downbeat figures throughout were played with warmth: Boulez’s dry humour proved that there’s more to fun in music than belly laughs. Capriccio isn’t heard too often. Perhaps we need to reassess JanáÄ?ek’s wit.

The Proms come into their own with spectaculars like the Glagolitic Mass, with over 200 choristers, a huge orchestra, 4 soloists, and organ. The Royal Albert Hall organ has 9999 pipes, 147 stops and a height of 32 feet. It’s the second biggest in the world. JanáÄ?ek was himself an organist and would have been thrilled. In a small Moravian church, this Mass would have been claustrophobic, but JanáÄ?ek, an atheist who knew all about playing in churches, said his cathedral was “the enormous grandeur of mountains beyond which stretched the open sky…the scent of moist forests my incense”. Parallels with Boulez’s teacher Olivier Messiaen are obvious.

Again, Boulez brings insight. With forces like these, any performance is monumental, hence the temptation is to let sheer scale dominate. Instead Boulez maintains clarity, so the complex textures remain bright and clean. Orchestral details count, despite the magnitude of the setting. The four soloists could easily be heard above the tumult, and the massed voices of the choirs were not muddied. In any Mass, there’s a tendency to focus on lush excess : after all the “story” is pretty big. But as Boulez, himself an unbeliever, said before the Prom, the composer chose to set the words in ancient Slavonic which few people understood. This creates a sense of distance, allowing the listeners some freedom of imagination. Of course words like “Gospodi” and “Amin” have obvious meaning, but the words are signposts. The action is in the music and how we listen. JanáÄ?ek is also creating a temporal distance, as if the piece was a throwback to ancient times and ancient communities that had ceased to exist even in his time.

The version used in this Prom was an edition by Paul Wingfield based on the original score, wilder than the more refined edition we’re used to. Boulez responded to this well, sculpting angular blocks of sound, respecting the jagged, wayward rhythms. This was echt JanáÄ?ek, that old curmudgeon ! The movement for solo organ seemed almost sedate in comparison, but this being the mighty Willis, there was no way it sounded tame.

This Prom was filmed and can be viewed on the BBC site in full! Worth watching to study Boulez's gestures.

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2008/08/prom_40_boulez.php

Prom 39 Stravinsky L'Histoire du Soldat

Because L’Histoire du Soldat contains spoken words, it’s easy to assume that a conventional reading will suffice. Hence some of the elaborate performances which attempt to inject exaggerated “realism” into the words, overwhelming the music. Yet the music is paramount, the spoken parts mimicking its rhythms, not the other way round. This is music, above all. The words serve the musical line, like a new kind of instrument. Most actors aren’t musically acute enough to appreciate this, which is why performances without the vocal parts are valid, and so often far more successful as a result. As Patrice Chéreau said on the BBC broadcast, this is “pure theatre”, artifice, not naturalism, we don’t need to be lulled by false realism. Parallels with The Rake’s Progress are apt. In both, men make pacts with the Devil. Stravinsky deliberately uses spartan forms, so the stark moral dilemmas are not softened or compromised.

Chéreau famously helped Boulez create the seminal Bayreuth Ring decades ago, which might have earned him easy laurels solely in opera. Instead, he made his career in theatre. Then, last year, he and Boulez created a remarkable new approach to JanáÄ?ek in a new production of From The House of the Dead. For an actor, Chéreau is unusually “musical”, perhaps because his work isn’t mainstream theatre but sensitive to wider influences. If anyone could do justice to L’Histoire, it would be someone like Chéreau, who understands how words and music integrate. He got exactly the right balance. By holding the script in his hands, even though he was clearly reciting from memory, he gave visual expression of Stravinsky’s concept of theatre/music as art, not faux reality. It’s also a reference to the mysterious book in the text which the devil gave the soldier (who didn’t read it).

Chéreau narrated all three “parts”, the soldier, the devil and the narrator. The princess is represented, silently, by a ballerina in some performances. This is perceptive, as the parts aren’t “characters” as such but symbolic. Chéreau’s delivery was perfect, pungent and pointed. He was earthy enough to convey the “sense” of the peasant soldier, reinforcing the way Stravinsky writes into this music echoes of a raucous village band. The angular, quirky rhythms turn the steady trudge of footsteps into a bizarre, macabre dance of death. Chéreau is so attuned to the musical logic that his spoken lines take on the same, jerky staccato. These are not verité rhythms of speech., but presenting this in any language other than French spoils the cadences. In non-vocal performances, the violin part is predominant, for many reasons. The devil, for example is often portrayed as a fiddler. This violinist was excellent – no surprise then to find it was Guy Braunstein, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmoniker, no less. Barenboim brought out the internal relationships well, violin and voice, bassoon and clarinet, violin and double bass. The programme notes translate L’Histoire as “March” but it’s a manic, sardonic dance as well, so these inner relationships do count. They are not unisons so much as tense little duels, like the card game in the story (and in The Rake’s Progress!).

I went to this Prom for Chéreau, for he is a huge draw and rarely heard. The ensemble comprised members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This is an extremely good orchestra, far better than the label “youth orchestra” might imply. If anything, the circumstances in which they work together intensify the commitment of their playing. It’s full spirited, yet well integrated : these musicians really know why it’s important to listen to each other, even if they don’t agree. In a small ensemble these values come through even more strongly. The most accomplished players here naturally shone, but all pulled together. At one point during L’Histoire, the percussionist instinctively started to dance. It showed how completely “involved” he was. I loved it.

Boulez’s Mémoriale (…explosante-fixe originel) is demanding but came over well because the ensemble understood how its muted dignity comes about through relationships, not star turns, even though the flute part is exquisite. Boulez was as young as these musicians when he met Stravinsky. The two composers hit it off immediately. There are accounts of them sitting together deep in earnest conversation. What might have happened had their friendship developed ? We’ll never know, but Mémoriale is a sincere and very moving tribute to Stravinsky, and, in this revision, also to a flautist prominent in IRCAM. This background is worth bearing in mind as there was an invisible thread in this Prom. Just as Boulez learned from Stravinsky, Boulez, Barenboim and Chéreau (and Braunstein), have worked together for years, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has significance in human as well as music terms. After Mémoriale, Boulez briskly bounced onto the platform, shaking Guy Eshed’s hand warmly. The flautist’s face lit up. It wasn’t a moment he will easily forget.

Part of this Prom was being filmed. What they probabaly won't show, though, was Boulez, standing in a box over the stage, listening to L'Histoire - another moving, intimate moment for me. BTW the picture shows the cover 0f the Chicago Pro Musica recording of L'Histoire (non-vocal) on Reference Recordings. It's one of the best, proving how good this piece is even without narration. Better none than bad : all the more to value narration as idiomatic as Chéreau's.

Gweneth-Ann Jeffers Harawi Messiaen

This was the Prom everyone will kick themselves for missing because it was way out in Sloane Square in the middle of the day. Messiaen's Harawi is very rarely heard because it demands technical virtuosity beyond the norm. More than in most vocal work, the voice becomes an instrument : yet even when the singer is singing made-up words or Peruvian, she has to convey several different levels of meaning, musically and emotionally. Gweneth-Ann Jeffers is still young by singer standards and this is not a cycle for the faint hearted. Full marks for ambition ! And she pulls it off. was spectacular. Her singing ranged from barely audible whispers, when describing the sleeping village and the transition to "colombe verte", symbol of erotic love. Then the explosive cosmic tourbillon of song 6 with its manic outbursts and the esctasy when the lovers become transfigured with the stars. Then the very complex rhythmic patterns and sudden changes of direction. Listen and you'll hear what "Doundou Tchil" is. This is a difficult piece because its deliberately elusive and emotionally contradictory. One of the lovers suggests decapitation (what an idea for a date) which implies it's more than a private love pact, and of course the incantation and chanting. The lines are formidably long and the singer has to judge her resources with extreme precision. Also the relationship between piano, voice and silence is intriguing.

There aren't many recordings : Dorothy Dorow/Carl-Axel Dominique is a safe bet. Jane Manning, the British Harawi doyenne, literally "wrote the book" with her detailed and perceptive commentary sadly now out of print. Her recording was made with such emphasis on the piano that she sounds way too distant but she knows what she's doing. So, listen to Gweneth Ann Jeffers and Simon Lepper on the repeat broadcasts. They could be the definitive champions of this work in our time.