Aldeburgh 2013 - The Church Parables

Grimes on the Beach has, understandably, garnered more attention in this Britten anniversary year but one of the other major productions, the performance of Britten's three church parables in their original location of Orford Church, is unmissable. (Judging from reports we have heard, Grimes should prove so as well - we will be there later in the week.)

Curlew River, Photo by Robert Workman

Director Frederic Wake-Walker has gone back to the source. I should perhaps let the composer himself explain. Writing in the programme for the 1964 festival, Britten said:

It was in Tokyo in January 1956 that I saw a Nō-drama for the first time.... The whole occasion made a tremendous impression upon me, the simple touching story, the economy of the style, the intense slowness of the action, the marvellous skill and control of the performers, the beautiful costumes, the mixture of chanting, speech, singing, with which three instruments made up the strange music - it all offered a totally new 'operatic' experience.

Aldeburgh 2013 - In Brief

As well as Volkov and the CBSO's concert, Saturday was a pretty full schedule with two sets of quartets. In the morning Quatuor Mosaiques treated us to Purcell, Haydn and Schubert. Haydn's op.76/6 quartet responded wonderfully to their period style but while Schubert's D887 quartet was very beautifully played I personally prefer a more romantic approach.

That afternoon in Aldeburgh church it was the turn of a quartet with a different style and period: the Arditti Quartet with works by Harvey, Britten and Anderson. I only really know Harvey's larger orchestral works so was glad to hear two of his quartets. Arising from the time he spent at IRCAM (with whom I've also heard him collaborate on Speakings) his fourth quartet was particularly interesting for its use of live electronics. Having said that, the first two sections took a bit too long to build up. They created some nice effects, particularly in the middle section which had a passage akin to whale song. Julian Anderson's Light Music left me rather cold and as was the case the last time I heard a piece of his, failed to evoke the the inspiration detailed in his programme note (so far as that could be deciphered).

Aldeburgh 2013 - Watkins, Volkov and the CBSO PLAY Harvey, Matthews and more

I know Ilan Volkov well from his successful tenure at the BBC SSO, prior to the man himself taking over. To some at the Maltings last night he was a new name, but judging from the reaction they were glad to make his acquaintance. Certainly I was not surprised that his interpretations of Jonathan Harvey and Colin Matthews marked the highlight of the festival so far for me (though I have only had four concerts to date). It helped, of course, that he had the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to work with. I've praised them before, most recently after their Edinburgh visit last summer, and am rather jealous of their forthcoming season.

In the first half, though, the standout performance came from horn soloist Richard Watkins in Colin Matthews' superb horn concerto. I've not encountered the piece before but it should be done more often. According to the programme note, "the horn solo is, literally, a wanderer". And it was refreshing to find that they didn't mean figuratively. The concerto began with both Watkins and Volkov absent from the stage, the orchestra's leader Laurence Jackson beating slowly with his bow. Volkov then tiptoed onto the podium to take up the reins while Watkins made himself heard from the wings. As the twenty minute, single movement work progressed, he made his way across the stage. This was more than just a gimmick as the sound of the horn changed in interesting ways with the Maltings' acoustic: the effect as he stood close to the stage right wall, the bell pointing towards it, was particularly nice. If the need for this odyssey presented an added challenge to Watkins it was not apparent in his playing which was beautifully executed throughout, without a cracked or fluffed note in sight. And as if that wasn't enough, Matthews provided extra horns by the upper doors for a quadraphonic effect. All this made for an experience that was not only excellent musically but also theatrically. It is always nice to come out of a performance of a contemporary piece wondering why on earth it isn't performed more often, and this was certainly one such. (There is a recording available by Watkins, Mark Elder and the Halle on the orchestra's own label which I will now be checking out, though it will not be quite the same.)

Aldeburgh Festival 2013 – A Festival Weekend, or Five Concerts in Two Days

The more astute observers of this website and my twitter feed may have noticed that I like to cram the culture in, and there are few better ways to do that than at busily scheduled Festivals. Aldeburgh isn't quite as mad from this point of view as Edinburgh, but yesterday in particular it kept us very pleasantly busy.

Saturday began at 11am in Aldeburgh Parish Church with Festival Director, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and his sister Valerie Aimard in a recital for cello and piano, both together and solo. The programme was a moderately demanding one of Kurtag, Carter, Shostakovich and Britten, and I fear I may still have been a little weary after a late night at Peter Grimes the previous evening. I got most enjoyment out of the Shostakovich (piano solo) and the Kurtag (cello solo). I was less convinced by the Aimards as a duo pairing. To my ear, and this was perhaps a consequence of being seated on the piano side, the sound didn't appear equally balanced, and Valerie Aimard I found a bit austere for my taste. It was never an uninteresting recital, and it was well worth hearing all four works, but she, in particular, didn't compare for me with Miklos Perenyi's performance on the same instrument in the same venue last year, or with Heinrich Schiff who used to come to Edinburgh in the McMaster years.

Aldeburgh Festival 2013 – Peter Grimes in Concert, or, I Simply Hadn't Realised

Prior to this performance, I had seen Peter Grimes staged twice. Once by Scottish Opera in a perfectly acceptable production but with an inadequate Grimes, and once in the ENO David Alden production which I detested. In contrast my first experience of Billy Budd (in the marvellous ENO Albery production) was overwhelming. I think it is in consequence of this that I have tended to have a grumble to myself on a regular basis at the insistence on Grimes as Britten's operatic masterpiece. After this performance it is clear to me that I simply had not had the opportunity to realise what an extraordinarily powerful piece it is.

This concert performance will be followed next week by performances on Aldeburgh Beach. This brought real benefits as, unusually for concert opera, the performers had all been rehearsing together for some time. It showed. The soloists were all off score and the individual characterisations were without exception remarkably vivid. I was very grateful to be close enough to the stage to really see every facial expression. Especially notable was the way in which expressions and body language in sections where individuals were not actually singing conveyed a continuing deep engagement with the drama. For example, in the build up to Ellen Orford's arrival at the pub in Act 1 Scene 2 Giselle Allen somehow gave a sense that she was out there on the storm tossed cart.

Hearing an opera score in concert often leads one to pay more attention to aspects which have previously not registered, and this also happened to me at Friday's performance. I was particularly struck by the brief flirtation at the beginning of Act 3 between Swallow and the nieces.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.