Some years ago now
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were
one of the first British orchestras
to pioneer their own record label. More
recently the London Symphony Orchestra
have followed suit (to considerable
acclaim) and in the last year or so
the Hallé have joined the club.
The decision of the
London Sinfonietta to follow the same
path is a particularly exciting one
for contemporary music enthusiasts given
what must be a treasure trove of archive
material that could potentially be drawn
upon. Much of this material would have
originated from BBC recordings and it
is the BBC that is responsible for the
recording of this live concert with
which the Sinfonietta has chosen to
launch their new venture.
2002 saw the fiftieth
birthday of Oliver Knussen, a musician
who has been more involved than most
with the Sinfonietta in recent years,
including a period as the ensemble’s
Music Director from 1998 to 2002. In
her booklet note introduction to the
disc, Gillian Moore, the Artistic Director
of the Sinfonietta, comments that the
original idea was to ask a handful of
Knussen’s closest composer friends to
write brief birthday pieces for him.
However, "word got round"
and before they knew it they were having
to draw the line at thirteen contributions.
Subsequently, the decision was taken
that this could form an appropriate
double celebration of both one of our
most revered musicians and the launch
of the new label.
It is no surprise that
the stylistic range of the composers
represented is vast, from the extreme
concision and relative simplicity of
Louis Andriessen’s minute Very
Sharp Trumpet Sonata to the
uncompromising and characteristic grittiness
of Charles Wuorinen and Elliot
Carter’s contributions. The latter’s
cunningly titled ensemble piece Au
Quai is typical of the composer
in its craftsmanship and is notable
for being based on a short story by
Arnold Schoenberg in which he tells
of the anxious return of the fishermen
of a French village following a storm.
From here a direct link can be traced
to Schoenberg the composer in the music
of Alexander Goehr whose father,
the conductor Walter Goehr, studied
with the elder statesman. His only
two notes for olly is a study in
restricted musical material comprising
five brief, continuous sections within
which Goehr creates amazing variety
from the humble notes of F and B. Detlev
Glanert’s Dancing Landscape
for two pianos builds from an innocuous
opening through a variety of Latin and
dance rhythms before retreating to its
opening material once again whilst Hans
Werner Henze’s Olly on the Shore
is an affectionate and fleeting picture
for solo piano of Knussen gazing out
to sea from his Aldeburgh home. American
Augusta Read Thomas compares
her Light the First Light of Evening
to the blaze of light upon the initial
striking of a match, the ensemble appropriately
bright in pitch and instrumentation.
Robert Zuidam amusingly buries
the melody of happy birthday (somebody
had to do it!) in his piano miniature
I suppose a Fugue is out of
the Question. Colin Matthews
provides one of the most engaging contributions
in Flourish, with fireflies,
the title itself a play on Knussen’s
own Flourish with Fireworks,
the material consciously drawing on
Knussen’s own soundworld without resorting
to derivation until the final bar when
the piece concludes with the pivotal
chord that forms the fulcrum of Knussen’s
Third Symphony (anyone who knows the
symphony will instantly recognise the
chord in question!). Julian Anderson,
a Knussen protégé who
has forged his own career as one of
our most talented young composers provides
an initially disarmingly sparse theme
and variations for solo piano in his
Quasi una Passacaglia that gradually
gathers embellishment during its four
minute discourse. The familiar jazz
inflections of Mark Anthony Turnage
are immediately evident in his Snapshots,
an entertaining development of a two
bar riff from his own work, Scorched.
George Benjamin’s beautifully
crafted Olicantus is a ravishingly
mellow and resonant ensemble piece,
almost Takemitsu like in its gentle
progress and all the more memorable
for being one of the few genuinely slow
pieces on the disc. From the coruscating,
descending figures at the very opening
of Bubo bubo, the voice of Magnus
Lindberg could hardly be more recognisable.
A virtuosic and energy driven showpiece
that appropriately mirrors Knussen’s
tireless and selfless energy in his
championship of other composer’s music
before it concludes in a blaze of radiance.
There is much to be
enjoyed in almost all of these pieces
although I would suggest starting with
the Matthews, Lindberg and Benjamin.
All three of their works are memorable,
albeit for entirely differing reasons.
In conclusion I can
only congratulate the London Sinfonietta
on the launch of their new venture and
wish them every possible success for
this and future releases. The contribution
of the Sinfonietta to contemporary music
and musicians both in this country and
abroad cannot be underestimated and
on this basis alone they deserve to
succeed in spectacular fashion.
Christopher Thomas
London Sinfonietta/George Benjamin 