The All Rise Playlist

Among the many virtues of music, one that I particularly prize is its ability to lift you up when you're feeling down: there's nothing quite like going into a concert you almost couldn't be bothered to attend and coming out grinning, or coming home after a long day and spinning a disc that takes your troubles away. It is in experiences like this that my all rise playlist has its origins. That, and I stole the idea from one of my favourite TV shows.

About seven years ago when the show was much closer to its prime, there was an episode of How I Met Your Mother called The Limo. In it the character Barney, played superbly by Neil Patrick Harris, explains the secret of why he is "so psyched so much of the time": he has a playlist, a "get psyched" mix, that instead of rising and falling is all rise. Now I should stress at this point that with his appalling treatment of women and general behaviour that is light years beyond questionable, he is hardly much of a role model. And yet this didn't seem like such a bad idea. Except that the actual track featured in the episode, Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name never struck me as terribly lifting with lyrics like "shot through the heart, and you're to blame, darling you give love a bad name". Obviously Barney has different ideas as to what lifts your spirits than I do. Ditto, frankly, the various full versions of the playlist that have appeared.

Continued »

The BBC Proms booking system

In fairness to the Albert Hall and the BBC Proms, setting up a system that can adequately cope with a flood of thousands of people trying to book more than a hundred thousand tickets in one day is not easy. And though the system is not ideal it is also not the sort of disgrace we had up here with the Edinburgh festival Fringe a couple of years ago.

Before I get on to criticising I will note some things they get right. It is great that booking is on a weekend (as with the Edinburgh International Festival, at least for main public booking, and the Berlin Philharmonic). Contrast this with the Royal Opera House who use a weekday, which is problematic for people who work. Yes, some people work weekends, but fewer so a weekend is fairer and fairness is, in my mind, along with robustness, one of the most important requirements of one of these booking systems.

The key challenge is one of server demand. In an ideal world this would be solved by providing more server capacity, but resources are finite and even in these days of virtual servers I accept that may not be a practical solution. The Proms is not alone in this sort of problem: companies like the Royal Opera House and National Theatre have similar issues, though while I am not privy to the numbers, I suspect that in terms of number of tickets going on sale in a single day, they may have the biggest. As with the Royal Opera House, the Proms attempt to solve this with a queuing system. Again, this is broadly a decision I agree with. In theory it means first come first served and provides an effective way of managing the demand on the servers. In theory, that is.

Continued »

The 2013 BBC Proms

The BBC have announced their 2013 Proms season and while it is not perfect it still serves as a reminder of why the BBC offers good value to those of us who are fans of classical music in providing this unique festival. This is true even though it's been some years since I made it to the Albert Hall (not least as in many regards it can be argued that the best seat to listen from is actually your own sofa, especially now that Radio 3 is at 320 AAC online). I do find it puzzling that if you want an easy way to scan through all the concerts this is to be found via Bachtrack's clearly laid out site, which is much more user-friendly than the BBC's own if you want to look at the whole season rather than a specific Prom.

For me one of the expected highlights is the arrival of Sakari Oramo as the BBC Symphony Orchestra's new chief conductor. As I said when first proposing him for the post after a stunning debut concert, one of his potential strengths is that he is adept in both British music and new music. We shall see, hopefully, both of those traits in the first night, when he gives us a world premiere by Julian Anderson, Britten's Sea Interludes and Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony. I am particularly looking forward to the latter which is a favourite of mine and which I expect Oramo will ensure is suitably dramatic.

It is perhaps a slight shame that we will only see him twice this season, but hopefully that will expand in future years. His other programme mixes the world premiere of Param Vir's intriguingly titled Cave of Luminous Mind with Sibelius's violin concerto, Bantock's Celtic Symphony and Elgar's Enigma Variations. Oramo's Elgar was one of the many highlights of his decade in Birmingham, as evidenced by his recording with the CBSO of both Enigma and Gerontius. Similarly his recent Stockholm account of the second symphony. These are interpretations that are both powerful and feel fresh.

Continued »

The CBSO announce their 2013/14 Season

There are a number of fine companies around the world that I wish were within an evening's easy travelling time of Edinburgh. Many of them, such as Deutsche Oper or the Chicago Symphony are quite some way away. Others are a little closer, though would still require an overnight stay and lack conveniently situated friends or relations to stay with. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra falls into the latter category and their newly announced season has many tantalising items.

I was rather surprised to learn this will be Andris Nelsons' sixth season with the orchestra. How time flies. Since I will be unlikely to partake of much if any of the season, this will not be as detailed a roundup as the local bands get, just a few highlights I'm most jealous of.

First up, one of my favourite works, Mendelssohn's 2nd symphony, Hymn of Praise, gets a rare and well deserved outing under Edward Gardner as part of a complete cycle. This joyful choral work is notable for one of the finest trombone themes in music, indeed it opens with a trombone solo, and also has a claim to very little fame as the only piece of music I have arranged (very slightly) for public performance (or really at all).

Continued »

English National Opera's 2013-14 Season, or, Oh God, All the Old Familiar Faces

Regular readers of this blog, or people who follow me on Twitter @heresfinn will know I have been strongly critical of the current artistic leadership of English National Opera. Recently, though, my frustration has intensified in the light of what has seemed to me to be a wilful determination on the part of many professional critics and arts journalists simply not to ask obvious questions about, or to ignore obvious explanations for, the state of affairs at the company (not least concerning possible reasons for its over £2 million losses in 2011-12 – which the company was bullish on today interpreted variously here and here and see further note at end of post). I have also been annoyed by the praise which has been directed at the company for being allegedly experimental and for its embrace of technology. There appears to be an idea, so far as I can judge, that opera is in deep trouble as an art form and that English National Opera's allegedly adventurous programming (such as the recent unimpressive Sunken Garden) is the path to a better future. I do not propose to go into a detailed analysis here of why I don't think the company should be regarded as especially adventurous, or presenting the future of opera. What I will suggest is that while we might debate some of this with regards to previous offerings under John Berry's leadership such adjectives certainly cannot be applied to a 2013-14 programme dominated by All the Old Familiar Faces and Approaches.

Let us start with the positives. The most exciting work on the agenda is unquestionably the world premiere production of Julian Anderson's The Thebans. I don't know Anderson's work at all, but I'm a big fan of anything related to Greek mythology. It's also great to see Roland Wood return following his superb performance in Vaughan Williams's Pilgrim's Progress last year. I'm also intrigued to see Pierre Audi in action whose work I don't think I have previously managed to catch. All that said, my brother heard an orchestral work of Anderson's at a concert last year and was not grabbed. [Editor's note. The piece was The Discovery of Heaven which I found dull and which did not to me evoke any of the things it was intended to, according to the programme. That said, I'm all for new opera and will certainly give this a try if I'm in the area at the right time.]

Also promising is the return of Terry Gilliam to direct Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini. Corinne Winters (the outstanding element of this season's La Traviata) returns, as does Nicky Spence. In general casting seems to be on more solid foundations across the season than has sometimes been the case in recent years which is certainly cause for a cheer or two.

Continued »

The Edinburgh International Festival's new director

Just over six years ago, on Friday 30th March 2007 to be exact, we launched this blog. In large part, to talk about the first Edinburgh International Festival programmed by Jonathan Mills. I mention this because yesterday the festival announced his successor, Fergus Linehan. This came as a slight surprise. Although Mills is due to complete both the 2013 and 2014 festivals, last October the search for his successor was announced, with a view to them being in place as director designate from this summer, so I hadn't expected the news quite yet.

This is a positive development. Mills' appointment began less than a year before his first festival and given how long in advance classical and opera artists must be booked, the lack of an early start was an avoidable handicap. There are, however, some similarities between Linehan's appointment and that of Mills. Mills was previously director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, whereas Linehan ran the Sydney Festival from 2004 to 2009, where he achieved a significant growth in turnover through increased ticket sales and sponsorship (perhaps he will look at some of the festival's pricing issues). Certainly their Instagram feed is always full of fun things (though that particular image came several years after his tenure). A tweeter who responded to my request for information was very positive about his tenure. That said, this slideshow from 2009 calls to mind the Fringe far more than the International. Prior to Sydney he directed the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Indeed, he seems to have a very strong theatre background, which will come as excellent news to those who most value the theatre and dance pillars of the festival programme. And, it could be argued, that following two more musical directors we are due someone from that area again. Frank Dunlop (1984-1991) was the last festival director to come from a theatre background.

Continued »

ENO's Sunken Garden, or, Proving that Michael van der Aa is not a Triple Threat

For the last few years English National Opera has escaped the Coliseum once a year for something smaller scale and generally more experimental. Because these tend to be short runs at an academically inconvenient time of year this is the first of these escapes that I've managed to catch. On the whole I rather wish I hadn't, though I can't say I wasn't warned.

Sunken Garden is advertised as a film opera. The programme notes go to great lengths to insist that the art forms are organically linked together, or as the composer, director and film-maker is quoted as saying “3D would be locked into the DNA of the libretto.” Sitting through it this was not my experience. In the first part the musical sections don't feel well connected to the films and in the second the Garden's visualisation in 3D could be dispensed with at no loss to anybody. The only person who can be blamed for this, with the exception of the libretto to which we'll come, is Michael van der Aa. Van der Aa apparently labours under the delusion that he is some new kind of operatic triple threat – equally talented as composer, director and film-maker. In fairness he is undeniably passable at all three, but on the basis of this show in none of them is he of a quality to make one want to rush to see/hear more of his work.

He is not, it has to be said, helped by David Mitchell's libretto which commits three cardinal sins. First of all it failed to create characters which engaged my emotions. Secondly, it engages in tedious moralising about needing to live every moment despite all the awful things that occur – as I've remarked in other contexts this kind of messaging only really works if connected to a character for whom one really cares. Thirdly, it leaves so many plot points unexplained as to have one gnawing limbs off in frustration. To give just a few instances: What is the Garden doing there in the first place? How come Dr Marinus has the power to destroy it? And why is Tobias's only means of escape to jump through the pond of water (which explodes so we can be reminded how clever using 3D film is) into the body of Zenna Briggs thereby undergoing a bizarre sex change? I failed to grasp any of this by listening to the piece and the two page plot summary in the programme is not much help either.

Continued »

EIF 2013 - The Music Programme in more detail

In a sensible change, the launch of this year's Edinburgh International Festival programme was slightly less frantic than is traditionally the case. In past years, booking has opened on the day of the launch, but this year we had fully 24 hours to digest the programme first. This was just as well as it featured some tough choices, though for me at least somewhat front loaded with the most clashes at the start. I've already offered my first impressions, but since public booking opens today, here, a little later than planned, are my fuller thoughts on the music programme. (My brother looks at theatre and opera here.)

The task of kicking off the festival is in the hands of honorary president Valery Gergiev, though not as one might expect with either of his regular partners, the London Symphony Orchestra or the Mariinsky. Instead he takes up the baton (or more likely the toothpick, as is his preference) with the RSNO for Prokofiev's 3rd piano concerto and Alexander Nevsky. It's unusual that we're not getting a single work but on the positive side, this should prove a far more exciting and appropriate curtain raiser than the damp squibs of the last two years.

This year sees a reasonable crop of visiting orchestras, chief among them the exceptional Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons. They were last here way back in 2007, Mills' first season. They impressed me so greatly that I travelled to London for a series of appearances they made at the Festival Hall over the following years (with programmes including Bruckner, Shostakovich, Strauss and Mahler). Sadly they have not been back lately, making their visit all the more welcome. For my money, this is one of the very best conductor / orchestra teams in the world and is absolutely not to be missed. Jansons is no slouch in Mahler 2 either, one of the works they're bringing, as he proved with the Concertgebouw at the Barbican a few years ago, rivalling the man himself for offstage brass placement. Be warned, he will almost certainly observe the five minute break Mahler marks in the score between the first and second movements (not a decision I agree with, and one which last time prompted me to fear seriously for his health).I'm even keener to hear what they can do with Tchaikovsky 6.

Continued »

Peter Oundjian and the RSNO present Má vlast

While I've long been familiar with Smetana's Má vlast, it is only comparatively recently that I came to love it. That was as a result of a glitteringly persuasive account from Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBC SO at the Proms two years ago, so fine it swept me away completely even without being in the hall. Alas it has not been issued on disc.

A slight problem with having an experience like that is that nothing that follows quite seems to recapture it. This was the first time I've heard the piece in the flesh and so the fact that while I found the performance good, it didn't sweep me away, may owe something to that context.

Generally the playing was of a good calibre. The strings shone particularly, especially in some of the fierce chords found in Tábor. Oundjian's interpretation was rather what I have come to expect from him: solid, and often at his best in the realisation of some of the big climaxes. And yet, at the same time missing that extra x factor. In the smaller moments particularly he didn't let the score bloom and open up as it can. Interestingly, since it was the movement he chose to describe in his talk, for me Šárka fell flattest of all. He had said all the right things, but somehow he didn't bring them out.

Continued »

EIF 2013 - The Opera and Drama Programme

Opera

The 2013 opera programme is dominated by two returnees. It begins on the opening weekend with a new production of Fidelio from Opera de Lyon who previously visited the Festival with Porgy and Bess in 2010 (which I missed) and in McMaster's last Festival with two superb productions (a Weill double bill and Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa). According to the International Festival's Twitter account, Jonathan Mills apparently claimed at the press release that this production was one of the 2013 Festival's boldest offerings. This seems a remarkable claim when a) Fidelios are two a penny and b) there is an awful lot of other programming in this year's Festival which given what I regard as the general conservatism of Edinburgh audiences is remarkably bold. I can only assume that the basis for Mills' claim is the production's concept. Apparently director Gary Hill is to set the opera “on board the doomed spacecraft Aniara as it hurtles towards infinity” (to quote the Programme guide). A little digging suggests that he may be thinking of a poem by the Swedish Nobel laureate Henry Martinson entitled Anaira (I haven't read it). More concerning is the fact that Hill's background seems to be almost entirely in video installations – apart from some kind of loose staging of works by Edgard Varèse he doesn't appear ever to have directed an opera before and I'm afraid the London stages in recent times have been littered with disasters resulting from putting opera into such neophyte arms. The other immediate question raised by the description in the programme book is whether Hill has realised that the opera has a happy ending – presumably the doomed spaceship is going to turn out in fact not to be. The production opens in Lyon towards the end of this month, so more information may then be forthcoming. Kazushi Ono, the company's principle conductor, conducts. He previously conducted the Ravel double bill and Hansel and Gretel at Glyndebourne, but lists no other UK operatic engagements in his biography – I heard good reports of the former. Erika Sunnegardh sings Leonore having previously sung it in Frankfurt and the Met. She and most of the other singers will all be new to me.

The second returnee is Barry Kosky, a Mills regular. This time he brings a double bill of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Apart from the fact that I have some doubts as to whether these two works will pair well together, I can't say that I am thrilled by the prospect of more Kosky who has not impressed me on previous outings (here's what I said about his ghastly Poppea in Mills's first year). The productions were originally staged in Frankfurt in 2010 and reviews for both plus a selection of images may be found here and here. Regrettably none of them are in English. Surprise is always possible, but I'm not optimistic.

Continued »

The 2013/14 RSNO Season

Perhaps it's the fatigue of four programming announcements in eight days, but I'm afraid I can't get too excited about the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's 2013/14. In part, this may be because while a number of the individual works or concerts catch the eye, there is little by way of theme or overarching structure to tie them together.

The sole thematic exception is the programming of a number of works by Britten, including a his War Requiem, conducted by Peter Oundjian, who starts his second season, and featuring Susan Gritton among the soloists. This perhaps goes some way to explaining the absence of the work, and indeed the composer, from the Edinburgh festival this summer.

The Britten is not the only big outing for the RSNO Chorus. The other, which comes at the end of the season, is a performance of Mahler's titanic 8th symphony, again under Oundjian. That Erin Wall is singing will please those who recall her stunning voice when she sang it under Runnicles at the festival in 2010.

Continued »

Here's Runnicles: The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra announce their 2013/14 season

Announcements appear to be like busses. You wait months for the Edinburgh Festival programme and then barely have you had time to digest it when two orchestras fire out their announcements. However, I must say that I rather like the fact that the BBC sent their announcement to the general public before the press.

Given the amount he's here these days, it's hard to remember there was a time when you couldn't hear Donald Runnicles conduct a concert in Scotland for love or money, outside the odd festival appearance. It's a little sad, therefore, that the orchestra has scaled its Usher Hall appearances back again from three to two, though the blame can probably be laid at the door of Edinburgh's audience who sometimes don't know a good artistic thing when it sets up and performs in front of them.

One interesting aspect of the season is the choice to pair Mahler with Britten. It's not a coupling that obviously jumps out at me so it will be interesting to hear. As we weren't swamped in Scotland during the anniversary year, three symphonies doesn't feel excessive, especially when two, the 5th and 9th, are conducted by Runnicles, always a sure Mahlerian. I'm particularly interested to hear the pairing of the 9th and Part's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten which should work well.

Continued »