Posted on by William King

A great piling up of colossal ideas – the Eroica

Beethoven’s mask by Lucien Levy Dhurmer (1906)
WILLIAM KING relishes a cinematic realisation of a great musical moment

There was a time when I never thought of visiting YouTube, believing it to be full of cat videos uploaded by doting owners. Later I discovered my error – it was, in fact, full of a wide range of pointless videos. Then I came to discover that there are many worthwhile grains to be found among the chaff and Eroica is surely one of them. I think myself exceptionally fortunate to have accidentally discovered this British film, and this is my justification for reviewing something made over two decades ago, in 2003.

Eroica is a dramatisation of the first, private premiere of Beethoven’s third symphony, the ‘Eroica’ or heroic symphony. The film’s most remarkable feature was the brave decision that saw the full symphony – all 49 minutes of it, plus a little bit of Mozart – incorporated into a film that is only 83 minutes long. This might seem to leave little time for any drama as well: surely the drama – the main plot and an amorous sub-plot – must cease when the music commences? That this is not the case is due to the excellent screenwriting of Nick Dear, the intelligent direction of Simon Cellan Jones, and the emotional sensitivities displayed by the cast. And, of course, the very fine playing by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, conducted by Beethoven in the film, and by John Eliot Gardiner ‘behind the scenes.’ As a result, music and drama become inseparably fused throughout the film.

It might be best to sketch briefly some of the known facts relating to the private premiere of Beethoven’s third symphony. As we shall see, it should perhaps be called the first rehearsal, rather than the first performance.

Eighteenth century view of the Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna

It was held in June 1804, in the Vienna palace of the Bohemian nobleman Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven’s principal patrons. It took place in a small hall – still known as the Eroica Hall – usually reserved for chamber music, but which could accommodate over two dozen musicians and guests. Lobkowitz was born with a deformed hip, and needed to use a crutch all his life. As a young man he inherited a fortune in money and estates and was known for his lively disposition and warm-heartedness. He was also renowned for his extreme passion for music, employing his own orchestra and chorus – a passion that was ultimately financially ruinous to him. As Count Razumovsky, a Russian nobleman and ambassador in Vienna, later noted: “This Prince was as kindhearted as a child and the most foolish music enthusiast. He played music from dawn to dusk and spent a fortune on musicians.”

A cynic might say Lobkowitz squandered his fortunes on music; I prefer to think that he sacrificed his fortunes to music. Certainly it was he, and a small number of other patrons, who gave Beethoven the financial security to devote himself to composition.

Rehearsals were unusual for symphonies at that time. Professional musicians were expected to give a competent performance by sight-reading the score – even at a premiere. The ‘Eroica’ was different however: almost twice the length of a conventional symphony, the complexity of the score and Beethoven’s perfectionist attitudes rendered rehearsal imperative. The – thankfully private – premiere rehearsal/performance did not go well. With Beethoven himself conducting, errors crept into the playing.

However, one of the most famous incidents came when Ferdinand Ries, pupil and friend of Beethoven, interrupted the playing when he incorrectly thought the horns had come in too early. As Ries recalled: “’That dammed hornist,’ I said. ‘Can’t he count. It sounds frightfully wrong. I nearly got my ears boxed and Beethoven did not forgive me for a long time.’”

Joseph Haydn, revered as the Grand Old Man of music in the early 1800s, arrived at the palace in time to hear the final movement of the symphony, and to make a number of prophetic comments about it.

The public premiere did not take place until April 1805. We may be certain that the orchestra was properly rehearsed this time, but the length, scope and sheer power of the piece, especially the first movement, was too much for some. One member of the audience was infamously heard to cry out: “I’ll give another kreuzer [a copper coin] if the thing will only stop!” There was muted applause at the end.

So much for history; what of the drama? It is a sad fact of life that film and TV dramatisations have rarely more than a nodding acquaintance with historical reality. All too often dramatists, whether through ignorance, an ‘agenda,’ or a desire to ‘jazz things up,’ see no reason to let reality get in the way of a good drama. A bit like newspaper editors never letting the facts get in the way of a good story! Thankfully there are few such blemishes here, and when they occur they can be excused on the grounds of dramatic licence. A few examples should however be mentioned.

Wenzel Sukowaty, Beethoven’s copyist, rushes in shortly before the performance is due to start to give out the sheet music to the orchestra. Cue much baffled incomprehension from the players – “The fingering. Have you seen bar 34?” and indeed, “Bloody hell.” The copyist quietly explains to Prince Lobkowitz, “The piece is a monster… It may not be music at all.”There are a few false starts when Beethoven commences conducting, and he has to explain that the orchestra are to play ‘sforzando,’ attacking each note, for maximum intensity. The sad plea “Can’t we play a bit slower?” is answered with a resolute no. However, from then on the orchestra sight-reads, at first time of asking, a piece that is exceptionally long, complex and not like anything they have played before, without error.

This is surely not what happened in real life, but – and this is a huge but – it means we get to hear the Eroica as Beethoven wished it to be heard, played on historically authentic instruments by a first-rate orchestra, under a leading conductor, fully in sympathy with the music. If dramatic licence is not forgivable here, then when is it?

More examples of such licence may be given. The long-suffering Ries does indeed interrupt the playing, leading to a volcanic eruption of rage from Beethoven, but did he really cry out, “Piss off!” to his hapless apprentice, in front of Prince Lobkowitz and his assembled guests, many of them ladies? No doubt Nick Dear, the writer, felt it necessary to ‘update’ the language for 21st century ears. One can only say, O tempora, O mores…

Finally, towards the end there is a ‘flash-forward’ scene when Beethoven and Ries visit a tavern after the performance. Ries there discovers from a friend that Napoleon has declared himself Emperor. He nervously informs Beethoven of this, knowing that Beethoven was a great admirer of Napoleon, regarding him as an embodiment of republican virtues. Beethoven, in a towering rage, rips out Napoleon’s name from the dedication to him on the front page of the manuscript score. Historical accounts vary slightly but it would seem Beethoven did hear of Napoleon’s declaration from Ries, and he did destroy the dedication to Napoleon, but probably not immediately after the premiere performance. This is, of course, why the third symphony is called the Eroica symphony, and not the ‘Buonaparte’ symphony as originally planned. A little dramatic licence is surely excusable here.

These minor quibbles aside, what are the most noticeable virtues of Eroica? Apart, of course, from the exquisite playing by the orchestra. First and foremost Eroica is superb in its exploration of the relationship between music and society as a whole: specifically, in this case, the musical revolution that Beethoven is about to unleash against the backdrop of the social and political changes after the French Revolution, and symbolised by Napoleon Buonaparte.

This is, for the most part, done with much subtlety. For example. the film opens with the lead violinist of Prince Lobkowitz’s orchestra playing a piece by Mozart, before the guests have arrived and the new symphony is to be first aired. It is very beautiful piece, calm and serene, but it is not in any way threatening – it will never, as it were, be the backing track to a revolution. Playing it serves as a counterpoint to what will come. No wonder Beethoven laughs on hearing this music on his arrival – he knows just how much of a shock his music will be.

There is much debate about music and its place in society. The opposition to Beethoven, and all he stands for, comes from Count Dietrichstein, a nobleman friend of Prince Lowkowitz. He is very much a supporter of ancien régimes – if you don’t have a title your views scarcely count. Wisely he has not been presented here as an ignorant buffoon. Rather he is an intelligent man but with fixed ideas – fixed about the nature of society and fixed about what music is. Since the feelings and opinions of the ‘lower orders’ count for little he condemns, to Beethoven’s face, the first movement as “Violent, needlessly violent” and “a tasteless intermarriage of the diatonic and chromatic.”

Dietrichstein is however honest: as the symphony progresses, he is clearly emotionally affected. Nonetheless he explains to Beethoven,

That wasn’t bad. It’s not a symphony though… The symphony has a structure. This is a formless mass. A mere arrangement of noise. A great piling up of colossal ideas. It’s very moving. In parts it has elements of the sublime. But it is also full of discord… But it is not what we call a symphony.

Mozart can be enjoyed by Count Dietrichstein – it does not threaten his musical tastes or the social order he inhabits. He simply does not understand the Eroica – and we are all unsettled by that which we do not understand. But he does understand that this is new music, which challenges the established musical order, and he worries that he does not know what the broader impact on society might be.

Beethoven is in more congenial company among the lower orders: he joins the members of the orchestra as they enjoy a mid-symphony lunch break. They discuss Napoleon: is he a threat or a liberator? Should he be resisted if he leads an army to Vienna? And will the existing social order continue?

Prince Lobkowitz has long believed that music is not just for the nobility. He is keen to have his servants enlightened and educated by exposure to high culture, thus the sound of Eroica has echoed throughout his palace. Downstairs in the servants’ quarters, an inexperienced footman is discussing it with Gerhardt, a senior servant, evidently one who has received a significant musical education through his years with the Prince:

“What do you reckon to the band, then?”

“They’ve taken the symphony to new heights.”

“Christ, have they?”

Thus the first wholly-unequivocal praise given to Eroica in the drama comes from a servant. Should we be surprised? Probably not.

There is a brief romantic sub-plot, centering on Beethoven’s unsuccessful proposal of marriage to the Countess Josephine von Deym, but most of the film relentlessly focuses on the symphony and reactions to it. Much of the film consists of shots, often quite long shots, of people listening to the music and their reactions, intercut with the sight of the orchestra playing. This depiction of the listening process is surely one of the keys to the film’s success. The facial expressions of members of the audience, variously showing delight, distaste, excitement and incomprehension carry the plot forward without the need for dialogue. There is also the aesthetic benefit that one can enjoy the music without people talking over it. This was quite a risky directorial decision: the slightest trace of ‘ham’ overacting could have left the film liable to ridicule. Thankfully what we got was acting at its best, from the actor playing Beethoven, through to those portraying the assembled nobility and down to the kitchen staff. Every part was played excellently. It would be invidious to single out any of the actors for especial praise – but I fear this is what I must do. Three of the finest British actors demand special praise.

First, Ian Hart as Beethoven. His face is alert, alive, the face of a man who cannot but show all his emotions. From towering rage, to marital disappointment, to sublime joy as he hears his creation come to life, Hart is excellent. As the last of the symphony ends, Hart is left in total silence – a grim foreshadowing of Beethoven’s forthcoming deafness.

Secondly, Tim Pigott-Smith as Count Dietrichstein. His haughty dialogue with Beethoven – always on the verge of verbal fisticuffs – is good, but the unspoken scenes, when he is listening to the symphony, clearly not wanting to like it, yet becoming emotionally affected by it, are sublime. A lesser actor could easily have ruined these scenes.

Finally, Frank Finlay, in a cameo role as a frail, elderly Joseph Haydn, the only man that Beethoven calls ‘Master.’ Arriving late to hear the finale of the symphony his words are a fitting conclusion to this review:

He’s done something no other composer has attempted. He’s placed himself at the centre of his work. He gives us a glimpse into his soul. I expect that’s why it’s so noisy. But it is quite, quite new – the artist as hero. Quite new. Everything is different from today.

Eroica, directed by Simon Cellan Jones, screenplay by Nick Dear. Music by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. Run time: 1 hour 23 minutes

This review first appeared in the St Austin Review (StAR) – St. Austin Review – StAR | Reclaiming Culture – and is reproduced with permission

Posted on by Richard Dove

Fishing with compliments

RICHARD DOVE finds seafood to die for

“We’ve never done this before”, exclaimed Hannah Gibbons, general manger of the Fish On the Green restaurant in Bearsted, Kent. Well, judging by the smart green aprons of the staff and the delightful welcome glass of sparkling Gusbourne, the event had been meticulously rehearsed and was about to begin.  Ahead of us, a multiple course tasting menu to celebrate New Year’s Eve. And an early start at 6pm so we could be home to watch the fireworks from London and elsewhere. There is a wonderful sense of expectation as we await the culinary overture – smoked Applewood beignet, petit ratatouille, Parmesan crisp and basil oil. The restaurant is close to capacity as a parade of plates emerges from the kitchen.

A tasting menu really does take out the jeopardy of menu selection and that primeval desire to have what your neighbour is having. Small parcels and exquisite tastes. Our culinary journey has begun. This is followed by Seared Scottish scallops, squid ink linguine, crispy Maldon oyster with Gusbourne butter sauce. My wife is in seventh heaven. The scallops melt and infuse the mouth. We consume in comfortable silence making appreciative noises. Language unnecessary. We sip and savour.

Can that be topped? Well, no question when lobster thermidor is unleashed. Would it be wrong to pick up the lobster shell and slurp? Yes, it would but the temptation remains. More bottles are being ordered and the chatter is louder, animated, engaging.

Tasting senses in overdrive, we are pacified by Gusbourne sorbet, poached strawberries and sumptuous lime meringue. I make a mental note to try poaching strawberries sometime. We are being set up for a blunderbuss finale and out comes dishes of dark chocolate delice, hazelnut brittle, salted caramel ice cream with chocolate tuile. It’s rich and enveloping. All noises cease as we feed. A bit too rich for Mrs. Dove but I am in a chocolate-induced trance. And there is still to come coffee and homemade truffles. I reflect on the planning, the industry, the skills, the organisation to carry off an evening like this. I pass the kitchen door, the chefs are smiling, they have every right to. Time for you to sample some Fish On the Green piscatorial magic. 

Fish On The Green, seafood restaurant in Bearsted

Posted on by Stuart Millson · 1 Comment

“The dawn’s early light” – American classical for today

October in the Catskills, Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1880
STUART MILLSON gets lambent glimpses of light

Kenneth Fuchs is Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut. Born in 1956, Fuchs belongs to a generation of modern composers who, whilst creating a sound-world clearly of our time, have partially turned their backs on earlier avant-garde trends, in favour of symphonic music that is optimistic, open, communicative, cohesive and completely accessible to a wide audience — an important consideration in these times of dwindling arts funding and an audience that is not getting any younger. 

Inspired by a painting by his compatriot, Morris Louis — and entitled Point of Tranquility — Fuchs’s work of the same name is a mind-clearing, subtly dazzling eleven-minute tone-poem of sudden, shimmering sunlight. There is a sense of a sea dancing beneath silvery horizons, of new pages turning in life — or even a return to old haunts, refreshed and renewed after a long period of absence. A masterly deployment of orchestral colour, the Buffalo Philharmonic and their conductor, JoAnn Falletta, set us on course for an album that gives us a further three revelatory scores.

Next comes Russell Platt’s Symphony in Three Movements, inspired again by an artist — this time, Clyfford Still (1904-80), creator of what has been described as “dramatically jagged colour fields” and “abstract expressionism.” This work is the most modern item on the CD, with an outdoor, breath-of-fresh-air tonality sharing the orchestral platform with more dissonant forms, and showing in that exciting brew the tremendous virtuosity and flexibility of the Buffalo orchestra, which emerges here as a top-flight US ensemble. (Why haven’t they been invited to the Proms? Why do we never hear them on BBC Radio 3?)

However — for me — the most intoxicating work on the recording is the Oboe Concerto by Randall Svane (born 1955, although the CD notes list his birth-date as 1972). As a lover of Vaughan Williams’s 1944 Oboe Concerto, I was anxious to hear Randall’s piece — a classic example of new Americana. A composer of church music and late-Romantic symphonic works, with distant echoes of Roy Harris, Samuel Barber or the melodious Howard Hanson, the new concerto begins in a pastoral dream: a long, languid span — a haze — of bittersweet reflection; similar in pace to the opening of Walton’s Viola Concerto. The oboe soloist (in this case the Buffalo Philharmonic’s principal, Henry Ward) clearly believes in the work with all his heart, and hearing this gently-questing, passionate piece makes you believe that a new Vaughan Williams is at work in the world. The three movements are entitled: ‘Flowing,’ ‘Very slow,’ and ‘Quick and light.’ Notice the simple titles, no arcane or technical musical notation, just names that provide an easy guide for listeners, particularly newcomers to classical music.

The album concludes with Chinese-American composer, Wang Jie’s orchestral tour de force, The Winter that United Us — a brilliant Stravinsky-like orchestral showpiece, culminating in a broad, noble, hopeful finale; showing the listener that music can help us to overcome the shadows that pass over our world — in this instance, the Covid pandemic and the suffering and anxiety that forced all of humanity to face up to a common crisis.

Recorded at the Kleinhans Music Hall and superbly recorded by sound-engineer, Bernd Gottinger, I have no hesitation in recommending this collection.

CD details: Contemporary Landscapes, Beau Fleuve Records, 605996-998593. bpo.org

Posted on by Richard Dove

Shining brass

Photo: Richard Dove
RICHARD DOVE is blown away by an ambitious brass ensemble

A Saturday morning concert always puts a spring in my step, particularly when the sun is shining and the venue is the ancient barn at Pilsdon in West Malling. This is the second day of the ever ambitious annual Music@Malling festival. Cups of coffee and tea and custard creams are being consumed as we listen to the fast-rising young quintet Connaught Brass tune their gleaming instruments. They arrived in the early hours after a trek across the country following a concert in Wales. Despite this they look fresh-faced and eager.

They stand in a semi-circle – tuba, horn, trombone and two trumpets. Elliot Carter’s arrangement of Purcell’s Fantasia on One Note sets the tone for a wonderfully varied repertoire. It is explained that Carter thought the one note was underdone and so this 20th century composer put his own slant on this Baroque piece. Indeed, we bounce between Baroque and the 20th century throughout the programme.

The interplay is stunning as the trumpeters take the lead and the tuba takes the pulse of the piece. After a resonant Vivaldi Concerto in F Major we move to unmistakable Leonard Bernstein and one of his final compositions, Dance Suite. These are brass vignettes with a quirky, bouncing, exuberant character which match the zest and energy of the ensemble.

Then, a surprise; the musicians move to all four corners of the barn to replicate Giovanni Gabrielli’s surround sound textures in St Mark’s, Venice. I stare at the high timbered ceiling as the sound merges and seemingly floats. This is virtuosity with imagination and a dash of daring.

We are transported from Venice to New York with Gershwin’s Three Preludes – a slice of Manhattan in West Malling. With their jazz traditions it is evident that Gershwin and Bernstein relish the sounds of brass and exploit the range of the instruments to the upmost. The mood changes with Dowland’s Flow My Tears, and this glorious melancholy embraces the Barn. How could such a varied programme be concluded? Well, the Connaughts deliver a magnificent finale with trombonist Will Foster’s arrangement of Kurt Weill’s Threepennny Opera. It has spoken interjections, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn, multiple muted sounds (muting a tuba involves a very elaborate contraption) and even a pause for a custard cream as one trumpeter soloist seemingly gives up the struggle and wanders to the back of the barn. They first performed the piece at the Lucerne Festival where the guiding theme was “Crazy.”

The sheer verve of the playing just makes one smile with wonder and astonishment. It is evident why this chamber group won first prize in the inaugural Philip Jones International Brass Ensemble Competition. After a Gershwin encore they stride purposefully out of the barn as the applause resonates. We have all witnessed something very special and it’s not even lunchtime.  As we head out, the musicians are all sitting around a picnic table chatting. Friendship and virtuosity is a winning formula. Do keep a watch out for Connaught Brass.

Posted on by Stuart Millson · 1 Comment

Sounds of sovereigns

Coronation Banquet of George IV

Royal Throne of Kings

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Albion Records, ALBCD062 

 STUART MILLSON finds royalist strains in the complex composer

Since the days of Purcell and Handel, English composers have often excelled at royal music, or more accurately, marches and anthems for great regal occasions. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) did not quite fit into this tradition, with Elgar, Bliss and Walton largely assuming that role during his lifetime. He used to say he would never write such music. He nevertheless famously composed for Elizabeth ll’s coronation (‘O Taste and See,’ a setting of Psalm 34, and ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell,’ based on Psalm 100) although in a way that stressed the link between monarch and people – which is characteristic of his complex character and work, bridging ancient and modern, mystical and democratic.

Vaughan Williams also wrote for monarchs less directly, in his many incidental orchestral and vocal pieces for (or inspired by) Shakespeare’s history plays – dramas laying bare the trials and tribulations of the kings of old, the dark moments of their reigns as well as the moments of jubilation. Ironically enough, on the strength of this latest CD release from Albion Records, it could be argued that Vaughan Williams was in fact the most prolific servant of the Royal remit of any English composer, commemorating England’s battles, bloodshed, dynastic struggles, civil wars and crownings of Kings across the entire span of the country’s life as a monarchy.

Shakespeare being the inspiration, the disc offers us such gems as the 1913 Stratford Suite, in which ‘Greensleeves’ and several other famous tunes from Tudor antiquity make an appearance. Throughout the 72 minutes of music carefully curated and conducted by Vaughan Williams expert, Dr. James Ross, the listener will recognise folk-tunes which appear in other guises, such as Henry lV’s ‘Princess Royal’ — also heard in the quick-march opening to the composer’s jaunty ‘Sea Songs,’ ‘Halfe Hannikin’ (found in Sir John in Love and Fat Knight), Dowland’s ‘Pavane Lachrymae’ which was used by Sir Granville Bantock in Old English Dances, and finally, the noble plainsong melody which makes an appearance in the semi-final movement of Tippett’s Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles, and in the Allan Gray film score for the classic Powell and Pressburger film, A Canterbury Tale — the uplifting ‘Angelus ad Virginem.’

However, what makes this recording such an exciting find, the production such a success — so atmospheric and authentic, throughout — is the use of a smaller orchestra, in this instance the poised, elegant, silvery strings (listen out for the latter quality in Track 18) of the often-overlooked Kent Sinfonia. Recorded in Kent churches (Wye and Hythe) James Ross’s players bring an atmosphere of the theatre to the proceedings, but sacrifice nothing in the expansive and spine-tingling moments in Richard ll, or in Henry V’s appointment with destiny in the “vasty fields of France” (the seven-minute long ‘Henry V Overture’).

The recording has plenty of ‘air’ around it, so the dry acoustic of studios and modern concert-halls is, mercifully, avoided. A Tudorish brass sound, spot-on woodwind and martial side-drums ring out from the spaces of the mediaeval churches (so often the best recording venues), whilst the choral contribution of the Albion Singers in Henry lV – especially the rich baritones – suggests a larger number of singers than were actually present at the making of the record. Guildhall-trained soprano, Eloise Irving, also brings her magic to solo songs, such as in the famous melancholy setting from Othello, ‘Sing willow, willow willow.’ 

With informative programme notes, excellent photography and artwork from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society’s John Francis, the CD is complete joy from start to finish: my ‘album of the year.’

CD details: Vaughan Williams, Royal Throne of Kings, Albion Records, ALBCD062 

Posted on by Richard Dove

Mark Elder – statesman of music

RICHARD DOVE watches an eminent conductor bow out

The pause was exquisite. The silence seemed to embrace the sold-out Royal Albert Hall. The conductor was momentarily lost in a sound world of his own. He sighed and slowly exhaled. And then the eruption of applause broke the reverie.

This was Sir Mark Elder’s last performance with the Hallé Orchestra: Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. I watched as he smiled and joyously relaxed, gesturing to the orchestra. In his valedictory speech, he reminded us that he had been leading the Hallé for 25 years from its base in Manchester. “Some of you may not know where Manchester is. Well, you get the train to Crewe and keep going.”

Sir Mark Elder is now 77 and whilst stepping down as Music Director, he will still be conducting around the world.

He introduced me to opera. I read an interview with him and David Poultney on their plans for the ENO in 1979. They wanted to create a stir and bring opera to new audiences. I gave it a go, and have been giving it as go ever since.

The triumph and tragedy, exasperation and exuberance of Mahler’s Fifth seemed an entirely appropriate swan-song; an unconventional composer and an unconventional conductor. Elder liked to do things differently and was not afraid to speak out. He abandoned evening dress for the Hallé and called into question the latent jingoism of the Last Night of the Proms at the time of the Gulf War. He lost the conducting gig as a result. He was a very talented bassoonist and keyboard player who found his métier in leading and conducting. He is a fervent advocate of music in schools and reminded us in his finale speech of the importance of music in the cultural life of this country and, indeed, our own lives. He also urged us to protect and nurture the Proms Festival and not to take its continued existence for granted. It was absolutely appropriate that someone who has never been afraid to speak out and challenge orthodoxy should issue not bland platitudes about his career (“Let’s not get too sentimental”) but warn us to be on our guard and ensure that “this unique festival of music” has a future.

Sir Mark should have the last word:

I’ve tried to make the Hallé so much a part of the fabric of the city that even people who don’t appreciate the music we produce at least recognise that Manchester would be a poorer place if the Hallé did not exist. We need different sorts of music. If you can show a five years-old child a concert orchestra, they may not need that music until they are 45, but they try that and remember these people who came to school. Music is a spiritual food. We need it as much as we need fresh air and companionship, a social life or sports. Music is something to share with others. It has to have an open door.

Happy retirement.

Posted on by Richard Dove

From the Cape to Cairo by keyboard

Olatunji Akin Euba (1935 – 2020), founder of African pianism

RICHARD DOVE enjoys African-European intercultural excellence

I still remember when I first heard the unusual rhythms and bell-like tones of the Ethiopian pianist and composer Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou.  The smell of burnt toast brought me out of a musical reverie.  I could hear the patterns of African percussion in her playing even though I had no clue as to whom I was listening to.  Emahoy was a reclusive nun who rarely gave performances.  She died last year, prompting a reissuing of her sparse recordings.

She remained my main introduction to piano composition in Africa until the arrival of a new CD – African Pianism by Rebeca Omordia – where the work of seven contemporary African composers are featured, as well Chicago-born Florence Price who was the first black female composer to have a symphony premiered in that city in 1933.

There is much to enjoy, from the Arabic timbres of Algerian composer Salim Dada and Morocco’s Nabil Benabdeljalil to the polyrhythms of Soweto-born Mokale Koapeng, who explains that in his Prelude in D he “infuses the dance elements I grew up listening to and witnessing in various townships.” 

South Africa’s Grant McLachlan composed his Sonatina for Double Bass and Piano in 2016 and the third movement, Senzeni Na? (‘What have we done?’) remains hugely popular across the country. He says, “It is a recreation for piano of an anti-apartheid protest song often sung at funerals and demonstrations…inextricably linked to the struggle for freedom and democracy.”  The piece is slow and gentle, but with a quiet rage; it is easy to imagine it being played at sombre funerals.

In contrast, Fela Sowande’s Two Preludes on Yoruba Sacred Folk Melodies is a joyful, original and, as the excellent accompanying sleeve notes by Robert Matthew-Walker reveal, “a profoundly African print with a descending quasi-scalic theme in which seconds and thirds unfurl as leaves of a flowering plant.”

Akin Euba, who died in 2020 was regarded as the most distinguished Nigerian composer, musicologist and pianist of his generation.  He was the originator of “African Pianism” which he described as a style of composition aiming to join the inherent musical syntax of Nigerian Yoruba music to the European keyboard with connotations of fundamental harmony.   Euba was a siren voice for interculturalism in composition, pointing out the similarities between the piano as a Western instrument and several Nigerian traditional instruments. Wakar Duru is Euba’s arrangement of three of Nigeria’s most popular Yoruba songs. One can imagine the piece being played in a concert hall or in a rural village church with feet tapping or bodies swaying depending on location.

This recording is volume 2 of Rebeca Omordia’s exploration of the rich diversity of African piano compositions on the innovative Somm Recordings label.  It is a constantly surprising feast of sounds, moods and emotions. Born in Romania to a Romanian mother and Nigerian father, she is hailed as an African classical music pioneer and is the artistic director of the world’s first ever African Concert Series at the Wigmore Hall in London. This is a perfect starting point for intercultural musical exploration, east, west and all points north and south. 

African Pianism Vol. 2 by Rebeca Omordia.  Somm Recordings.  SOMMCD 0688

Posted on by Stuart Millson

All eyes on Opera Rara…

STUART MILLSON enjoys hearing Donizetti’s bel canto legacy honoured

At this year’s prestigious OPUS KLASSIK Awards, the Opera Rara recording label took centre-stage. Its success in winning the plaudits of the judges with a handsome CD set of a little-known opera by Offenbach, La Princesse de Trebizonde, has very much put the spotlight on a discerning recording initiative. Their latest release, Donizetti’s equally rare (1828) L’esule di Roma – ‘the exile from Rome’ – brings the work of opera conductor, Carlo Rizzi, to the fore, once again, as well as reminding us that 225 years have passed since Donizetti’s birth.

Rizzi, for many years associated with Welsh National Opera, has a rich and varied repertoire and endeared himself very much to audiences at the New Theatre, Cardiff, home of WNO, during the heyday of his tenure. The maestro’s Italianate ‘light touch’ – as opposed to the Teutonic heft of mid- to late-19th century opera – is put to great use in the bel canto genre of Donizetti. Yet this particular piece has many of the hallmarks of ‘heroic opera’, set as it is in the reign of Tiberius – whose opponents have been vanquished by General Publius, an outcome hailed by all it seems, except the Senator Murena, father of the beautiful Argelia, who has mysteriously disappeared… The reason: the ardent Septimus (the son of a man exiled by Murena) has returned to win Argelia’s heart – freely given – a situation which leads to his imprisonment. There is the unnerving unravelling of a political conspiracy, and the mental breakdown of Murena, who has condemned Septimus to death – but then, the eventual pardon and reuniting with Argelia – a typically joyful end for an opera of this era. 

Bass-baritone Nicola Alaimo, bel canto soprano Albina Shagimuratova, and tenor Sergey Romanovsky in the title role, lead the cast – supported by that orchestral precision-instrument, Britten Sinfonia, whose ensemble size as a chamber orchestra make it perfect for those intense moments for the romantic duo at the heart of this Roman epic – and yet also capable of the grand moment (a prelude, perhaps, to the age of Verdi). And what a combination the leading stars make: each scene and aria outshining the previous, giving the opera a sense of unrelenting drama, with no feeling of drift or dullness, just an immersion into the fate of the exile, and the pain of internal exile, in the stifling atmosphere of Tiberius’s citadel.

With an excellent CD booklet (synopsis, artist profiles etc.) the new discs are a firm recommendation for those who relish front-rank operatic performance, the intrigue and passion of Ancient Rome, and recordings capable of evoking the radiant, searing sounds of the opera house.

CD details: Donizetti, L’esule di Roma, Opera Rara, (ORC64)

Posted on by Stuart Millson

A Hispanic and Germanic journey

STUART MILLSON travels from Moorish Spain to Beethoven’s more-ish Mass

Newly minted by the imaginative Meridian CD label comes a recording which is best played, late in the evening – on a warm night – with a glass of Rioja to hand and candlelight flickering in the corner of your room. In the absence of real Iberian surroundings, the disc – From Al Andalus to the Americas – takes the listener from the times of the Moorish domination of Spain from the eighth century, to the fall of Granada in 1492 to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and eventually the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the era of composers Granados, Turina and the Argentinian, Ginastera. 

The motivating force for and on the recording is the acclaimed American soprano, Christine Moore Vassallo, whose mother, of Arab-Levantine ancestry, inspired the singer to delve into the richly-textured, heady, overlapping mix of Muslim, Spanish, folk, religious, pastoral music and lamentations – fanned, like seeds in the air, to the New World, but rooted in the hills and gardens of Al-Andalus (the name for Spain during Umayyad rule). For this Meridian recording, Christine’s collaborators are Philip Arditti – an expert in Sephardi culture and an exponent of Darbuka, Riqq and Frame drums, Rachel Beckles Wilson, a writer and composer who is one of the West’s foremost authorities on the music of the oud, the guitar virtuoso, Pablo Gimenez, flautist Anthony Robb, and the Spanish pianist, Jorge Robaina. Each musician contributes to this fascinating hour-long time-travel through the history of the Iberian peninsula.

An anonymous pre-15th century piece begins the journey – Lamma bada yatathanna – from a poetic genre of the Arab language which appeared in the tenth century. The song, though, is ageless, describing a gentleman’s interest in the ‘swaying hips’ of a woman, and bemoaning his malady of love. Sephardic songs then follow (arranged in 1975 by Manuel Valls), leading on to three anonymous 15th to 17th century items, collected by the poet, Lorca (1898-1936) Canciones antiguas espanoles; the first ballad, Las morillas de Jaen, telling the tale of three Moorish girls, converts to Christianity, gathering olives and apples on dusty terraces, but earning, too, admiring glances from a nearby farmer. The Iberian climate clearly inspires ‘youth, mirth and warm desire’…

In Canciones del Jardin Secreto, a composer of modern times, Anton Garcia Abril (1933-2021) sets old Arab texts, including the lament of Boabdil (or Abdullah, the last Moorish king) for his lost fortress of Alhambra:

‘Longed-for Alhambra, your castles are weeping

About what happened to me, Lord Abu-Abdullah

Give me my stallion and white blade

And let us go and take back the Alhambra…’

The collection ends with the colours and magic of Ginastera’s Five popular Argentinian songs; taking us to the New World; to the frontiers of the Latin civilisation founded by trade, exploration, conquest, yet tinged and underpinned by the cadences of a culture – that of Islam and the Moors – which itself formed one of the world’s mighty empires.

Gustav Blaeser’s 1840 model for a never-made monument to Beethoven

Finally, by way of complete contrast, we travel to a mediaeval church in the ancient kingdom of Kent (the land now criss-crossed by motorways, the pilgrims in shorter supply) to a performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C major, given by the powerful forces of the 70-strong East Malling Singers – Kent’s large-in-scale, large-in-ambition ‘amateur’ choral society. Able to attract exceptionally fine instrumental accompanists and accomplished soloists, the Singers (conducted by Ciara Considine, with organist, Nick Bland) patiently rehearse their repertoire for many gruelling weeks – a repertoire that typically includes Masses by Haydn, the occasional Handel oratorio, uplifting anthems and hymns by Parry and Vaughan Williams. 

At first, the regular concertgoer and buyer of CDs might pause before considering a non-professional performance of a Beethoven Mass. But such reticence would be a mistake, because here – like an amateur orchestra tackling Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony – we enjoy the pleasure of hearing the rush of adrenaline of aspiring artists, our fellow human beings, activating every sinew in the cause of doing their very best. And in the wide acoustic of the Church of St. James the Great, the rising swell of sound in Beethoven’s opening Kyrie is just as satisfying for any true music-lover, as if you had just ventured into a Deutsche Grammophon recording studio. With a reverential Bruckner motet as an extra item on the CD, how could you resist?

CD details: From Al-Andalus to the Americas, Meridian, CDE 84647

Beethoven, Mass in C Major. A private recording, but for further details contact Mrs. Elaine Gordon of East Malling Singers,www.eastmallingsingers.co.uk

Posted on by Clarence Caddell

Questing verse

The Living Law

Jesse Keith Butler, Darkly Bright Press, 2024, 106 pp., £16.08

CLARENCE CADDELL welcomes an audacious new poetic voice

Jesse Keith Butler’s debut volume The Living Law exhibits an extraordinary mastery and inventiveness of form, comprising poems in traditional metres (with an unusual predominance of the anapaestic), as well as free verse, not to mention prose poetry. The matter spans country and city life, family, travel, work and leisure. Some poems address their themes directly, even polemically.

Religious themes predominate, with poems on a range of subjects depicting and evaluating experiences from the somewhat aloof persona of a man whose faith grants him access to a truth beyond this world. For example, ‘The Boatwright’ contemplates the postmortem fate of the speaker’s unbelieving brother, and cleverly as well as touchingly finds the same wiggle room as many a liberal theologian, granting the minimum and the maximum an orthodox believer may, that “if there’s open water beyond this life […] I know you’ll find your way.”

The overall sensibility is conservative, however. Witness ‘Whatever is Born of Fire’ with its generalised anti-modern nostalgia that evokes Eliot’s ‘Choruses from The Rock.’ Developing out of a vignette of returning to the family home, the aspiration bursts forth:

We can try to turn back—

     We could maybe turn back—

          And seek a strange new trajectory—

But here as elsewhere one is aware of a problem that Butler has not dealt with. Just as a descriptive passage featuring “heavy clouds” filled with “life-giving rain” in a scene that “tears the veil of time” is built upon cliché, so the notion that we might in some sense return to a pre-modern, religiously-based culture lacks authenticity, with what might be ‘strange’ and ‘new’ about this proposed trajectory left unexplored.

At his most glib, Butler is capable of promulgating intellectual clichés like:

Rock on, rock on Voltaire, Rousseau

‘Cause Revolution’s all we know

We’ll line them all up in a row

To build the Kingdom here below

(‘Rock on, Rock on Voltaire, Rousseau’)

Many poems in the volume depict a moment in nature in which a moment of afflatus supervenes in the manner typical of much nature poetry, in which a vision is beheld and, as Wordsworth put it, “we see into the life of things.” This lyric mode is so entrenched that it is hard to practise with any convincing originality. It is, of course, a heritage of the Romantic movement whose poets sought to imbue mundane subjects with the ‘visionary gleam’ of a religious ardour that even then had largely ceased to be evoked by Christian subjects. Thinking over the progress of English verse, it is interesting to note the peculiarity of Butler’s proffered contribution, since the latter often consists of injecting explicitly religious and Biblical imagery into a naturalistic setting, as in the prose poem that begins ‘“Look, he says, the friggin’ Rocky Mountains!”’ and culminates in a vision out of Genesis where

my eyes stream with tears and […] I wish I had a voice big and inhuman enough to sing along. […] It’s the creatures on the ladder that are singing, I know that now, and they’re both ascending and descending on a ladder whose end vanishes between the stars (‘The Ladder’).

There may be antecedents for Butler’s technique here. One thinks of his fellow Catholic Robert Lowell, who in his early work might juxtapose a vision of a Mary who “twists the warlock with her flowers […] her whole body an ecstatic womb” against the narrative of a drowned ancestor. Explicitly religious imagery has never died out, of course. But in Lowell’s case the depiction of Mary dramatises the repressed sexual content of Catholic iconography in a way that renders it uncanny. In Butler’s poem the narrative is delivered with the simplicity of a child reporting a Marian vision.

Butler’s use of form is virtuosic in a way that disdains to hide itself. Although The Living Law contains prose and free verse as well as iambics, the metrical refrain throughout is anapaestic: a metre not to be handled by those afraid of formal obtrusiveness. The cantering rhythm advances past the syntax, so that artifice is foregrounded to a surprising extent. The effect is often strident, as for example in the title poem, in which:

something cuts through the dull resonance

and draws us to join a reciprocal dance

and love the

                          living

                                       law.

The situation is a bus trip on which an old lady loses her glasses and the other passengers pitch in to help find them. But the subject is infused with a numinous light and music that give the weary speaker a sense of his place in the divine order of things – though the notion of him and his fellow passengers ‘dancing’ on a Greyhound is perhaps unintentionally funny.

I have hinted that the religiosity of these poems is sometimes their downfall. I say this not out of any dogmatic hostility to Butler’s religion and in full awareness of the importance of Christian belief to some of the greatest poetry in existence. But successful poetry must offer something new – not necessarily drastically new, but at least individual or peculiar to the speaker, the author, or the context of writing. If it does not, it merely restates, likely in hackneyed language, conventional sentiments derived from an outside source.

In the longish poem ‘The Lawgiver’ Butler re-narrates in truncated form the main incidents of Moses’ career in Exodus. We learn for instance that, “I stayed forty days as your fire filled my mind,” and “I cast your bronze serpent and lifted it up” after “the destroyer turned back at the doorway’s blood-smear.” It is a retelling with little embellishment. One thinks, in contrast, of Pound’s famous poem ‘The Goodly Feere’ with its surprising depiction of Jesus as the tragic hero of a border ballad. Whether one likes the depiction or not, at least Pound adds a fresh dimension to his subject. ‘The Lawgiver’ rather timidly imitates the form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry, suggesting an analogous attempt at resituation. Is Moses to be understood as a Hebrew Beowulf? But the formal exercise seems to have been carried out gratuitously, without significance. And this blandness extends beyond the narrative recapitulation to the equally derivative notions Moses enunciates, which might come from a prayer book of any denomination:

Your grace has brought me to the sabbath of your year

Ground me in sound judgment and knowledge of your law

[…]

Without your correction I’d be wandering still

And so on. The linguistic possibilities of imagery and symbol are foreclosed at the same time as discursive ones. It is very hard, perhaps impossible, to say what the author of the Psalms, for instance, has already said without using either the same or inferior language. It is as if someone out of utter devotion to The Bard were to rewrite Hamlet, more or less in the style of Shakespeare, changing nothing essential in regard to plot or characterisation.

Now, take ‘The Lawgiver’ and place it beside Vigny’s romantic depiction of the same subject in his great poem ‘Moïse.’ Hardly blasphemous or wildly revisionist, Vigny has a clear contribution to make to Moses as a human archetype. We imagine that we learn something new and previously un-adumbrated about God’s representative. Not how faithful and pious and prophetic he is, which we already know, but, for the first time, of his divided nature, half earthly, half heavenly, and the pain and weariness of such eminence, analogous to that of a romantic poet. Vigny’s Moses is an imaginative reinterpretation; Butler’s is merely an homage.

‘The Lawgiver’ is followed by the interesting ‘Villanelle of the Elect.’ If Butler’s use of anapaestic metre, internal rhyme and alliteration are a marching rhythm calling Christian soldiers to spiritual warfare, the repetitious form of the villanelle is serviceable to his ends in an analogous way. Surely that of election is the most puzzling and disturbing of doctrines, and one that requires circumspect treatment by anyone who would sympathetically present it in any of its denominational forms. Yet in what should be his most intellectually and spiritually rigorous exercise, Butler opts for a form highly ill-adapted to discursive development:

If Esau had hope, it was quickly deflated.

The subtle supplanter had him by the heel.

But Jacob was loved, and Esau was hated.

Nothing about the scenario, so puzzling and upsetting to the moral sense, is explained or even explored. Again, we have a simple retelling without augmentation or exegesis. It is cleverly done, but constitutes an overly deferential, and therefore superficial, approach to the material.

At his most accessible (at least, to the reader who lacks his convictions), Butler seems almost to entertain an aporia with regard to the certainties that elsewhere drive his poetry. In the sonnet ‘The Return,’ for example, the speaker addresses the city of Vancouver with the words:

The Hip on FM sing escape’s at hand

For me, the travelling man. Let this last mile

Stretch out to fill a year. Anchor my grand

Illusions to your stubborn facts awhile.

Those ‘grand illusions’ are probably the usual worldly ones: a failed relationship, dreams of wealth and career success or other appurtenances of this world that, 2,000 years later, is still doggedly imagined by some to be ‘passing away,’ as the Apostle Paul assured his followers—but interpretation must have some latitude.

Although I have expressed some reservations about his approach, it is bracing to discover an emerging poet whose sensibility stands provocatively outside the mainstream. Formal poetry is increasingly associated with curmudgeonliness, and Butler does nothing to challenge this perception; on the other hand, he writes with conviction and an evident desire to say something true and permanent. At the same time, there is something quite contemporary about The Living Law. It speaks to a certain subculture for which a necessarily selective rejection of modernity is expressed in a return to traditional forms and subjects, a defiance of writing seminar orthodoxy in favour of a certain literary populism – if it makes sense to speak, as A M Juster does in his blurb, of ‘a broader audience of poetry lovers’ in this day and age.