Written on Skin at the ROH

18/03/13

As a lover of much of Benjamin's oeuvre I expected to love this. And I did not. I'm still trying to figure out why. (I should note that I am considerably better disposed to the score now that I have heard the CD recording a few times than when I heard it in the theatre)

The thing felt compositionally "thin" - the rate of musical ideas is very low, the harmonic rhythm is extremely slow, ideas unfurl with minimum density and intensity. The aural surface is very beautiful, a slowly waving curtain of sounds, like Feldmanised Debussy stripped of its lush core and played at half speed: timbres are muted, crystalline, nacreous, pearlescent, with occasional explosive outbursts of violent noise that erupt from nowhere. It's very wind/brass focussed, with strings often just providing a whispy miasma of harmonics and viol like timbres, veils of sound imitating and supporting muted trumpets, which might be the "Ur-klang" of the piece. The score doesn't always seem to intersect with the libretto, at times diverging, falling out of focus, a softly atonal mist coiling around the subject - it's the opposite of German opera which demands that the story be told by both words and score in perfect harmony at all times, both simultaneously moving forward with their own logic. It certainly has its own atmosphere, but for some reason this evening it didn't have much of an overall impact on me, and aside from about ten minutes of music in the whole piece a certain austerity and plainness kept me from being too stimulated by the music.

I was sitting in the fourth row of the stalls and somehow the timbres didn't quite resonate properly in the ROH theatre from where I was. Heard up close on the recording that has just come out, they sound ultra beautiful and the music flows with a more palpable logic, but there's a real issue if your perfectly sculpted orchestrations don't sound properly in the space they were composed for. The orchestra is massive which mitigates its performances in smaller, more intimate venues (which my guess is where it would find its natural home) but everything's so quiet, the instruments used so sparingly, that much is lost in a natural acoustic. As I say it may have been my seat.

Aside from acoustical issues, I wonder if part of the problem for my lack of engagement was the production. The central story is very simple: a rich landowner commissions a young artist to create a beautiful vellum book that will glorify his name, wealth and empire. The landowner's illiterate, subjugated wife soon falls into an illicit affair with the boy with predictably violent results when her husband finds out. The libretto is uncomplicated, quietly poetic and pruned of flab to an almost painful degree. Like the score, it's also unsentimental to the point of asceticism, there's no redemption through love (the affair is a desperate meeting of bodies only), the ending is cruel and unapologetic and there is no moral to be drawn. We don't feel much sympathy for anyone (we're not meant to), except perhaps the landowner, though as a friend pointed out, maybe that's because the story has been passed down through a book that was meant to glorify him...

In Katie Mitchell's production, the set is divided into four rooms which are in totally different periods of time. The room where the central story occurs is set in the 13th century as the libretto suggests. The neighbouring rooms are a contemporary archaeological lab with various people in lab coats analysing objects from the main story, principally the book that is the cause of the story. So the piece becomes them unravelling the story and it coming to life through the book. The action continuously switches between the 13th century story  (where the modern characters continue their business in slow motion) and (accompanied by deft lighting and changes of speed) the contemporary setting where the lab technicians semi invisibly interact with the characters and set them up for the next scene. The boy lives across both worlds and is both an archaeologist and 13th century artist. This makes sense of some of the use of third person in the libretto (characters very often narrate their own actions), but is Mitchell being a bit literal here in trying to make sense of it all? The sense of emotional reserve is palpable in text and music, but I wonder if Mitchell has taken it too far and not trusted that it will have an emotional effect without explanation and intervention. It cannot be denied at least that it is visually arresting.

I also had issues with the lack of coordination between text/music and action - at one point the two lovers are tearing into each other (manual stimulation is the plat du jour in this opera), but the music continues with its veiled soughing and the singer's exhortations are so small scale that it's difficult to marry the visual with the aural. Barbara Hannigan is much better as Agnes than in her recent QEH recital, singing with unflinchingly superb intonation, consistent tone and an attractive sound, but the voice is very small and lacks the colour for larger, more expressive vocal gestures. She's never inaudible because the orchestration is so light but I do think she would have more impact in a smaller space. Acting wise she is totally committed to the role, living it fully, and her icy stage presence is completely in line with the music and text. Christopher Purves is similarly fine as The Protector (the landowner) singing with great beauty, accuracy and sensitivity, while maintaining a strong sense of the character's oafish violence, though there were a few gargling interferences and minor cracks in the sound this evening. Bejun Mehta is also fine as The Boy, blending beautifully with Hannigan, even if his vibrato can become uncomfortably wide, unpleasantly exploding into action after a long straight tone.

The ROH orchestra under George Benjamin are committed, but lack presence as already suggested, and as already discussed I don't know whether this was because of where I was sitting, the size of the ROH, the playing, the conducting or the score's subtleties not sounding properly in a real acoustic. I wish I could have seen it from another seat also!

CD Review: Dutilleux Correspondances with Barbara Hannigan

Deutsche Grammophon
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
Ansi Kartunnen (cello)













Late Dutilleux can be disconcerting. Of course Correspondances (2003) was composed earlier, but the similarities to the already long released Le Temps l'horlage (2007-09) are perhaps a little too close to comfort for fans of Dutilleux's music who will know the later piece - already the opening number "Gong (1)" reminds us quite a bit of the later song cycle (My thoughts on Le Temps l'horlage are here). The second song "Danse Cosmique" is basically the same song as "Envirez Vous" in Le Temps and in the interlude we get an accordion, quite novel in Dutilleux, but again a big feature of Le Temps. The third song "A Slava et Galina" is a letter from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife the late Galina Vishnevskaya who hid him when he had been denounced by the state in the mid 70s. This is a rather backward looking number - quite romantic at its opening, then more agitated, recalling late Ravel or one of the love melodies of Messiaen. The opening of "Gong (2)" stands out as a particularly ravishing orchestral canvass even by Dutilleux's standards - his characteristic seductive misty string clusters, glissandoing and blending with muted brass, low flutes, the accordion, and of course the gong once more. The last song "De Vincent a Théo" (the text from a letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother Théo) starts with a gossamer legato line for the soprano underscored by many of the elements present in the previous song, but lighter, more transparent, the jungle's canopy to the previous song's densely humid forest floor. It ends in an airily ecstatic climax, floating rather than soaring as in the comparable climax in Le Temps l'horlage, entirely in keeping with the mood of the piece. Though the similarities between the two pieces are many and striking, Correpondances is the dreamier cycle, Le Temps l'horlage the quirkier, more wide ranging and more dramatic perhaps. Both are minor Dutilleux, but as with all music by this most recherché composer, lovely to have nonetheless.

Barbara Hannigan sings it with a light purity that must be close to what the composer intended as he composed it originally for Dawn Upshaw, though Hannigan uses far more straight tones than Upshaw and is a smaller voice overall. This is a beautiful and committed reading, far better vocally than the recent South Bank recital I saw from her, Hannigan's girlish tone picking delicately over the text and supporting the line admirably.








The Cello Concerto "...Tout un monde lointain..." of 1970, one of the most searching, beautiful, challenging and masterful works for the instrument of the last half of the 20th century is one of Dutilleux's greatest masterpieces. The assurance with which Dutilleux uses his eclectic materials is quite astonishing in a period of music where everything seemed to have crumbled - the logic he manages to imbue his musical landscape with, which hovers between tonality and atonality, between his sensual French forebears and the avant guard, is a wondrous thing to experience. The classic recording that Rostropovich made at the height of his powers along with the equally brilliant Lutoslawski concerto has never been equalled for beauty, virtuosity, or unstinting sense of purpose, and though cellist Anssi Karttunen is a perfectly respectable interpreter, ably getting round the notes of this fiendish score (certainly one of the very hardest ever composed for cello) and would be wonderful live no doubt, he is not the visionary artist that Rostropovich was in his prime. It is unfortunate to compare performances like this, but for anyone who is interested in this piece, I couldn't in good conscience recommend this recording without mentioning the classic one. As an aside, there is one wonderful performance on youtube which comes very close to Rostropovich: the brilliant young cellist Xavier Phillips who equals Rostropovich's intensity and assurance.

Finally we get The Shadows of Time (1997) a piece "about" memories of the War relating to children; the central movement is dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank. If we ignore this program for a moment and listen to the music we hear a lot of Messiaen again - contrasting blocks of bold colour which hardly relate or develop - but also interspersed with this a stormily theatrical method of moving forward governed by dramatic gestures and explosive contrasts, particularly in the second movement, "Ariel Malefique". The children's voices that lead the third movement manage to avoid kitsch, but it's the least interesting music in the piece. The interlude is possibly the most beautiful and unexpected section, the haze of the string chords focussing into genuine warmth, with the same note repeatedly intoned, somehow relating to the "tuning section" of the violin concerto, before we return to the flow of events as we heard them before. The last movement sounds like a misty jazz standard from the '40s - 'Round Midnight perhaps: is the ambiguous title "dominant blue" referring to this? Once again, I'm not convinced that this is one of Dutilleux's best pieces  -there's little here that we haven't heard before from him done better - but there's plenty that is very beautiful, and as always it's immaculately crafted and worth hearing.

I must say that I've never heard Dutilleux's music sound bad in any performance I've heard - it seems to be so thoroughly well composed, clearly imagined and well notated that it's difficult to get wrong, provided the musicians are up to the challenge of playing it. I can only say that the orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen's guidance plays admirably, giving full thrift to Dutilleux's palette of colours. A bit of a cop out but I'm at a loss otherwise.

If you're new to Dutilleux I would recommend the cello concerto (with Rostropovich), the violin concerto (with Stern) or the string quartet before sampling this CD, but this is a nice disc with the first commercial recording of Correspondances and so well worth acquiring for those who are interested.

Barbara Hannigan and Quatour Diotima in Berg, Schoenberg and Alma Mahler

24/01/13
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Another concert in the Rest is Noise series, and we're still talking turn of the century music which is really my thing. The fascinating cultural, intellectual and artistic milieu of fin de siecle Vienna in particular is a rich subject for exploration and much has been written about its overripe, overwrought, indulgence, inspiration and eventual rot. Schoenberg's op.2 Songs, all of Alma Mahler's songs and Berg's seven early songs all were composed in this artistic crucible and reflect the sense of exploration and lack of assurance that characterises this period so strongly.

The early Schoenberg set feel like very traditional German lieder gone slightly askew with their tinkling piano figurations which occasionally open out unexpectedly into mystical evocations of rapt poignancy. Unfortunately Hannigan's very idiosyncratic singing did the music no favours - there was simply no legato to speak of - every single note was a lozenge shaped bulge, made even more uncomfortable by the occasional toothpaste like explosion of vibrato onto a sound that is 70% straight tones. Its a very light lyric voice and easily gets lost when quiet notes slip off the breath. One of Schoenberg's op.2 set I had just heard in Renée Fleming's recital at the Barbican last month and the comparison did Hannigan no favours. Neither did it Reinbert de Leeuw's pallid piano playing which rendered all of Schoenberg's complex harmony in drab watercolours, details hardly focussed in the haze.

Alma Mahler's songs have the atmosphere of parlour music, deliciously overlain by the schmerz of Wolf/Mahler songs to create touching little numbers that hint at an as yet incompletely realised compositional voice that may have developed into something really personal had she not been thwarted in this by her husband. Performance wise the same problems that beset the Schoenberg songs were present here too. Berg's Seven Early Songs are an achingly, luxuriantly, feverishly erotic set, the music of a young man trying to prove his compositional potency, and he succeeds admirably - its a set of miniature masterpieces that have understandably gained wider popularity than much of the music of this time. The musical lines are so strong here and colours so potent that it wrung more tone and line out of both performers, but this was still a constricted and frigid reading of a wonderfully indulgent and generous set of songs.

All this I found disappointing because Hannigan is so esteemed in contemporary music circles, and the clips I have heard of her in pieces by Boulez and other contemporary composers reveal a much fuller, more consistent sound, not to mention much more natural phrasing, at least with orchestra. Perhaps her technique changes dramatically for recitals, but it really came up short musically and artistically here. She barely smiled after each set during her bows so I wondered whether she was having an off day. I'm still hopeful about her appearance in the upcoming opera by George Benjamin Written on Skin at the ROH in a couple of months.

Finally we got Schoenberg's Second String Quartet which not so coincidentally features a soprano and is a key work in Schoenberg's transitioning between the lush late romanticism of the Gurrelieder say, and the atonal and eventual 12 tone phases that were to come. I have to say that I prefer its neighbours in Schoenberg's opus numbers list, but the last movement, the most "advanced", stands out as a wonderful inspiration. The Quatour Diotima have a very strange, brittle tone and ultra narrow vibrato, clearly deliberately cultivated as it's so consistent across all four players, but there's no bloom in the sound and little blend between players, with limited dynamic range, balance issues with the cello, and once again a severe lack of phrasing. As a result this was a rather ascetic reading of this already difficult piece, and only the last movement began to live a little more.

If Schoenberg and Berg are to ever gain greater currency they're going to need more passionate and beautiful advocacy than was proffered in this evening's music making. You can't win them all.