Other Links
Editorial Board
- Editor - Bill Kenny
- London Editor-Melanie Eskenazi
- Founder - Len Mullenger
Google Site Search
SEEN
AND HEARD CONCERT REVIEW
Michael Nyman:
Marie Angel (soprano), Michael Nyman (piano), Michael Nyman Band.
Barbican Hall, London 6.12.2007 (BBr)
Bob
Briggs
For over 25 years, the Michael Nyman Band has been playing Nyman’s
special blend of rock-funk-minimal-classical fusions and
shows no signs of aging or getting tired. Tonight’s concert at the
Barbican – shamefully poorly attended, from where I was sitting
the circle and balcony seemed almost empty – shows that not only
is Michael Nyman still entertaining and provoking us but, if
anything, is getting better.
Starting with a selection of ”greatest hits”, the Band kicked off
with Nyman’s In Re Don Giovanni (1977) – a reconstruction
of the first 16 bars of the Catalogue Aria from Mozart’s
Don Giovanni. It’s a fast and hectic romp with fiddles and
piano giving the pulse and with saxes stamping out the striding
bass as a euphonium teases us with the tune. The Michael Nyman
Band was cooking, make no mistake. In Re... invariably
brings the house down and tonight was no exception – the audience
was in a good mood and very attentive, waiting to be entertained.
Overall, we were not disappointed.
Next came four pieces from Nyman’s score for Peter Greenaway’s
Drowning By Numbers (1989) – Sheep ’n’ Tides,
Wheelbarrow Walk, Fish Beach and Knowing the Ropes.
Wonderfully chunky stuff, with a gorgeous viola solo from
Catherine Musker in the second, more reflective, piece. A return
to Mozart with I am an Unusual Thing, from Letters,
Riddles and Writs (1991), a BBC2 documentary which shows
Wolfgang on his deathbed. Marie Angel was the soloist, making the
most of the solo line even though hampered by the one thing
which spoiled the show for me – the amplification. Nyman’s Band is
an acoustic ensemble, heavily amplified. I have no problem with
that but it seemed to me that the balance hadn’t been thought out
well enough. Everything was heard at fortissimo, as one
homogenised lump of sound, and Angel's voice was quite often
simply absorbed into the texture and lost. Perhaps in
rehearsal, in an empty Barbican Hall, everything was fine, but
once the audience was added the balance changed. Whatever
happened, it spoiled a fine performance.
The first part ended with the London première
of
50,000 Pairs of Feet Can't Be Wrong
(2007), a new work with visuals, which set out to explore the
impact of long-distance running on the human body. It was
commissioned by the Great North Run Cultural Programme. The piece
ran (no pun intended) to several movements of - I am sorry
to say - not very interesting music. And not particularly
interesting visuals either – projected on a screen behind and
above the players. For me, this was Nyman simply going through the
motions; some humour, some motor rhythms, some catchy gestures.
But the parts didn’t add up to a particularly convincing whole and
by this time the amplification was really beginning to bother me.
With all this in mind, I approached the second part with some
trepidation, especially as I had read the texts that Nyman sets in
his new work I Sonetti Lussuriosi (2007) – “erotic” poems
by Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1556). Well, some will view these
sonnets as erotic, but others will see them as smut: each of the
eight poems concerned one person doing sexual things to another in
the most graphic terms. The Barbican claimed that the performance
was “…part of the Barbican's autumn exhibition Seduced,
which explores a different aspect of the human body - sex and art
from ancient times to the present day”. I’m not much of a
prude but I did find the sonnets rather boring: there’s a limit to
how many different ways you can write about what I’d like to do to
you sexually and keep it interesting.
All of this was in my head as Angel and Nyman came onto the stage
but hen the music started and I knew immediately that Nyman
had created one of his very best works. I would even go so
far as to call I Sonetti Lussuriosi a work of genius. This
was a new side to Nyman : the music was subtle and tender,
the motoric rhythms were kept to a minimum, used mainly as
colouristic devices, and the well-known chunkiness was used in
chordal music rather than as a pulse. I am sure that I also heard
a tinge of urban jazz in the trumpet part at a couple of points.
To be sure, there were faster moments, but they were very
restrained.
Angel sang in the original Italian – I assume she did as I
couldn’t understand the words – and with the house lights down it
was impossible to try and follow the printed texts, but that
didn’t matter. The music was sexy and sassy, perhaps going against
the very hard language employed, which made the piece all the
better. There were two absolutely beautiful violin solos from
Gabrielle Lester, although we have to consider the amplification
again.
Certainly there was slightly more dynamic range in this work, but
the loud music was loud and hard and as Marie Angel sang at the
top of her voice throughout when she hit the highest notes the
sound was shrill, the fault of the amplification again.
When she sang near the break in her voice she brayed however,
this wasn’t an amplification problem. Then, about two thirds of
the way through, Angel’s acoustic changed and she gained some
reverberation and sounded to be in a different room to the Band. I
did wonder if I was hearing things but since she quickly lost the
reverb I presumed that the engineer had had something to do with
this. That said, what we heard here was a superb piece of work,
and that is ultimately what matters: I say again, we heard
one of the very best works Michael Nyman has presented to his
public so far - and I can hardly wait to hear it again perhaps in
a studio recording where all the balance problems should be ironed
out and the work can be heard fairly and clearly. Nyman set eight
of Aretino’s sixteen sonnets – I hope he sets the other eight
soon.
All in all a most worthwhile evening and I Sonetti Lussuriosi
was one of the most exciting, interesting and satisfying premières
I have attended in some time.