A blog on gigs, music, art and London.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Jubilation - The Music Of George Benjamin, Southbank Centre, 12/05/12 - 13/05/12

I was at the Southbank Centre last weekend for Jubilation, their two day event celebrating the music of British composer George Benjamin. I didn’t make the concert in the Purcell Room featuring some of his chamber works but was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall to see the London Sinfonietta play three of his pieces alongside two works by György Ligeti.

The concert began with Melodien by Ligeti. It certainly contained some key Ligeti characteristics although sounded not quite as dense as pieces like Atmospheres. The music seemed to swell from the stage, advancing and receding almost as if under the control of some kind of strange, invisible tidal force. It was followed by Flight, Benjamin’s 1976 piece for solo flute. It was performed tonight by Michael Cox. The programme notes spoke of how Benjamin was inspired to write it after seeing birds flying over the Swiss Alps and it successfully recreated the movement and patterns associated with bird flight. With the sharp variations in pitch and speed it seemed to present itself as a companion piece to Olivier Messiaen’s attempts to replicate the sounds of birdsong (apt, given that Messiaen was Benjamin’s teacher in the 1970s).

Antara for chamber ensemble and electronics closed the first half. Like much contemporary classical I found it to be resolutely ‘head music’ in its structural complexity but the appearance of brass and percussion later in the piece really exerted a physical force. It was also rare in being a rare (only?) example of the panpipes sharing the stage with the more familiar instruments of the orchestra. I had doubts whether it would work beforehand but against some odds they were incorporated into the soundworld with some ease. Once finished, Benjamin stood from his seat in the stalls to take the applause of the audience.

After the interval came Ligeti’s Horn Concerto. I had only heard his string-based music prior to this concert and I found this to maybe not quite have the same dense opacity as some of these, almost sounding lighter and simpler although the last three movements provided moments of starkness.

The final piece played tonight was Benjamin’s Duet for piano and orchestra. In some ways I found it one of the more orthodox pieces heard over the weekend. The piano and orchestra seemed to enjoy a kind of respectful co-existence (aided by the sound of the harp), until the latter eventually reasserted its dominance towards the end.




I was back at the Southbank Centre the following night to see the Philharmonia Orchestra play more music by the same two composers at the Royal Festival Hall.

The opening piece - Benjamin’s Jubilation for orchestra and mixed children’s group - was a strangely muted, stop-start affair (especially so given the size of orchestra on stage). The following piece, Ligeti’s Double Concerto for flute and oboe fared better. Whilst talking to Gillian Moore ahead of the concert Benjamin described it as sounding as if played in slow-motion and underwater, both of which I’d agree with. It seemed to settle over the stage, slightly inscrutably, like a thinly dispersed mist. I enjoyed Benjamin’s Palimpsests for orchestra more, its compacted orchestral fluctuations and ominous sounding brass combining to great effect. The meaning of the title of the piece found clear corroboration in the music, especially in the layering of sounds.

Ligeti’s mesmerising Lontano opened the second half and invoked real suspense and mystery, sharing a similar stillness to the earlier Double Concerto. The show ended with Benjamin’s Ringed by the Flat Horizon, probably my favourite piece of the weekend. It seemed to epitomise his music - powerful and exacting without ever being wilfully difficult. Benjamin wrote it after seeing a photograph of a thunderstorm taking place over the New Mexico desert. This developed into a desire to produce a piece of music to suitably capture the tension of such an occasion. The replication of thunder and lightning on the double basses in particular was superb, and along with the orchestra conveyed some real moments of turbulence. As a piece it undoubtedly belongs to the world of contemporary classical although seemed to speak in its own distinctive language.


It may not have been quite equal to previous weekends dedicated to Edgard Varèse or Arvo Pärt, nor quite as all-encompassing in scale as the year-long celebration of Olivier Messiaen but still featured some excellent playing and some memorable moments. It was just a shame that the RFH was only half full and that many inside the hall during the first half of the concert seemed think it was fine to cough and shuffle their way through it. Such disappointments seemed in keeping with the slightly pessimistic tone struck by Benjamin in an interview with the Guardian. It was a shame – the music and performances this weekend really deserved better.

Bleeding Heart Narrative, CAMP Basement, 25/04/12


Back at the end of April I went to see Bleeding Heart Narrative at CAMP Basement. I was tired, and it was raining heavily but I was glad I ventured out  – both to see the band and the venue. There weren’t many people at CAMP – around 40 or so, but there were a lot of other gigs on that night.

I find them a difficult band to pin down in terms of sound. I hear hints of Arcade Fire and maybe even Interpol (certainly live) but with a suffusion of strings/drone. They sounded tight tonight, and played with a real energy (mainly tracks from 2011’s Bison EP I think). I’d been enjoying their Tongue Tangled Hair album in the lead up to this show.
 
Haeligewielle, the album released last year by frontman Oliver Barrett under the name of Petrels was one of my favourite albums from 2011. It was disappointing to miss his show at Cafe Oto the week later.


Sunday 11 March 2012

Natural Snow Buildings, The Victoria, 10/03/12

I’d never actually heard any music by Natural Snow Buildings (mainly due to their hard-to-get, limited edition releases) but had read a lot about them so went along to see them play at The Victoria, a small pub in Dalston on Saturday night. Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte have cultivated a reputation for being enigmatic, shrouding their music in secrecy and mystery, and tonight’s show served to further deepen this.

They played four pieces that lasted just over an hour in total, featuring bowed guitar and a plethora of pedals strewn across the small stage. The opening track showcased their shimmering, hypnotic guitar drones that suggested what Murcof may sound like if guitars rather than electronics were at the forefront of his sound. The second piece was harder, reminding me of the menacing sound of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s guitars when played live. I thought they also had some of the creeping, dark sonic swell of the likes of Deaf Center.

For the final piece they were joined on stage by a third member to further bolster their ranks, seeing swathes of sound flood out into and fill up the 150 capacity room.
 
Their music may have a still, slow-motion quality but I thought it was also very purposeful – it offered a clear articulation and then ended. There wasn’t anything superfluous in their music.

There may be numerous acts making this kind of music (you only need to look at the abundance of under-the-radar artists featured on the excellent recent series of futuresequence compilations) but the fact that I struggled to come up with names to directly compare them to proves that Natural Snow Buildings stand apart. This show was part of their first ever proper tour; I hope we’ll be seeing them again soon.

After the show I bought a copy of their latest album Beyond The Veil (limited release, naturally – mine is number 91 out of 300).

Saturday 25 February 2012

BBC Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits - Barbican - 24/02/12

I made a late decision to go to the Barbican on Friday to see the BBC Symphony Orchestra play pieces by Sibelius, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, conducted by Kirill Karabits. It was my first classical concert in almost 6 months (I wrote about the last occasion here). I was sitting in the circle, I think the first time I’ve seen a classical concert from that position (most of the time I’m up in the balcony). I had been intended on seeing Tindersticks at the Soho Theatre but unfortunately it had to be postponed due to Stuart Staples suffering from laryngitis (get well soon Stuart).

I attended the pre-concert talk in the Barbican Hall, which provided an interesting overview of the three pieces being played tonight - Sibelius’ 4th Symphony, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Stravinsky’s score to the ballet Petrushka (the 1947 version). The uniting theme of the night was that each piece was composed or premiered in 1911 - during his talk broadcaster Mark Lowther encouraged us to imagine being a music journalist in 1911 (yes please!), and specifically the range of musical events taking place across Europe at the time. There was a lot going on - on top of the three pieces performed tonight there were opera premieres of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole as well as the first performance of Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 (not to mention the death of Gustav Mahler later in the year). It’s hard to think that this level of activity will ever be replicated in modern times. I wonder how events taking place in classical music during 2012 will be viewed in 2112. I hope they are still remembered and thatthere are people who talk about them.

It was the first time I was hearing Sibelius’ Symphony No. 4 and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 being played live (or, in the case of the Prokofiev piece, the first time I was hearing it). Much has been written about the darkness of Sibelius’ 4th Symphony, in particular in relation to the composer’s personal situation and tonight was suitably introspective and foreboding, consumed by a tangible, overbearing sadness. Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto in comparison sounded untroubled, convivial and (towards the end especially) quite dynamic. Khatia Buniatishvili was the pianist and gave a superb performance. She returned to the stage for an encore of the third movement of Prokofiev’s 7th Piano Sonata, an astonishingly virtuosic performance, almost superhuman in its near-mechanical execution.

Stravinsky’s Petrushka was as dazzling as ever with its stitching together of Russian folk melodies, all layered and overlapping. As I watched the performance I realised one aspect I particularly like about Stravinsky (and Petrushka in particular) which is how he doesn’t use up his melodic quota early - dispersing it unevenly over the piece, almost teasing the audience by revealing fragments of melody. I always find the ending slightly awkward, I guess due to the association with the ballet. I’m not very good at comparing versions but tonight the BBCSO sounded extraordinarily tight tonight, giving a punchy, slightly pacier version of the piece.