Prom 72 - BBCSO/Litton and Proms Composer Portrait - Harrison Birtwistle

There are two entrenched beliefs about Birtwistle's music. To his supporters he has produced a body of work that has confirmed his place as one of the greatest living composers. His detractors maintain that his oeuvre is noise rather than music - 'Emperor's New Clothes' and 'cacophony' are among the kinder epithets. The argument that is frequently made is that Birtwistle composes only nihilistic anti-music - a curious charge to make given that nihilism can be a feature of 'traditionalist' as well as 'modernist' music.

Having listened to works such as The Triumph of Time, Antiphonies and Pulse Shadows my own attitude was similar to Gavin Bryars' view on Brahms - moments I liked but rarely lasting as long as a whole piece. Amongst the cassettes of pieces I had recorded from previous BBC Proms, there was Exody. Somehow I kept returning to that piece, listening to it late at night. I wondered what it was that compelled me to listen again to the music when other works had left me cold. The fact that the tape had run out before the conclusion of the piece did not stop me from hearing it again and again. So when I learnt that Exody was to be performed at the BBC Proms this year I knew I had to go.

The preceding Proms Composer Portrait may have showcased only two pieces but they gave an insight into most facets of Birtwistle's musical personality from the angular and rebarbative (5 Distances for 5 Instruments) to the concise and delicate (selected Settings of Lorine Niedecker). The austere beauty inherent in the settings, wonderfully performed by the cellist Charles Hervet and soprano Alice Rose Privett, are a quiet rebuke to those who think that Birtwistle is only capable of brute gestures. It would have been wonderful to have heard those settings on Newsnight as part of the BBC's commitment to new music rather than broadcasting not just one but two pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies.

There was only the shortest of breaks between Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' and the hushed opening of Exody. It didn't prepare all the members of the audience for the onslaught that was to follow. It commences with hushed strings punctuated by splashes of percussion. Then a volley of brass giving a bell-like summoning to a ritual. Even at its most dissonant the piece pursues a single theme. At times the music is fitful and remains in stasis. Occasionally parts of the theme are amplified to form the grandest of climaxes. At other times the melody is chopped up and divided among different instruments. The ear latches onto certain aspects for consolation - a solo saxophone here, a flute melody there. By the time the piece ends on the same hushed strings that open the piece, it is as if we are looking at a landscape whose broad contours remain the same and yet the fine details are fundamentally different and transformed. A four note motif in the strings is followed by a descent from G to F. It leaves behind a sense of anticipation and of hope.

Review - BBC Young Musician 2014 Woodwind Final

There is a moment in every music competition where you simply stop paying attention to specifics of tempi, intonation and dynamics and simply listen. It is when the hairs on your skin stand up. To get one performer who can do that is a sure sign of someone who can make the transition from talent to esteemed professional. To get two performers... well, we should give thanks for how lucky we are and envy the judges who have to make such an invidious decision.

This is not a slight on the musicality of Jess Gillam, Nick Seymour and Hannah Foster. Hannah Foster was a very good advocate for the music of Frank Martin. Jess Gillam has an intuitive understanding about dynamics and can play very quietly. Nick Seymour has an engaging musical personality.

The boldness of Sophie Westbrooke's approach to the repertoire could be seen from the piece she chose to open her programme. Hirose's Meditation is a contemporary piece and yet sounds much older. Shakahuchi sounds give way to Medieval melodies in the Lamento di Tristano and La rotta della Manfredina. It was in the negotiation of the transition from the melancholic Lamento to the fast La rotta that Sophie came into her own and showed off the recorder as an instrument that can create drama. She handled the transition from the Medieval to the Baroque seamlessly. It is not easy to deal with the double tonguing in the Castello but she handled it deftly. David Gordon's mellow recomposition of a CPE Bach melody rounded off a magnificent programme.

Daniel Shao gave an equally compelling performance. Just as Westbrooke could lead an ensemble performance, so could Shao in the Telemann (ably accompanied by Daniel King-Smith and Ruth Hallows). While playing the piccolo in Nunn's Sprite Shao could really show off the leaps and jumps. Dutilleux's Sonatine gave Shao full scope to explore the colours and timbres inherent in the piece. To take an audience into the world of contemporary repertoire and show the emotion and character inherent in the pieces is a huge achievment.

Sophie Westbrooke and Daniel Shao were technically flawless and really inhabited the musical worlds of their pieces. They both took risks with the repertoire and covered the entire pitch range of their instruments. Any judge would have had a very difficult decision to make. In an ideal world both of them would go through. The quality that ran throughout Westbrooke's performance was seamlessness. It is a cliche to say that she expanded the scope of what a recorder could do but what she did throughout was create a sense of drama and anticipation. Add to that the superb accompaniment of David Gordon and Carl Herring and here was a performance that showed that the recorder can really hold its own in ensemble playing.

Review - BBC Young Musician 2014 Percussion Final

When growing up in the Nineties, I always used to look forward to the grand final of BBC Young Musician - because you would always be guaranteed a percussionist performing with a full orchestra. It was a way of sneaking in contemporary repertoire - sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. And that was the joy of it.

It was a huge injustice in 2012 that Hyun-Gi Lee was eliminated (as well as the brass category winner Alexander Kelly). In fact there is no purpose in having the semi-final stage at all as it is currently organised. If the aim is to see whether performers can cope with the demands of playing with an orchestra, let them play a movement from a concerto with an orchestra. It would have been far better, though, to have all five category winners performing a concerto of their choice - just as it was in the past. Otherwise it gives the general public a limited vision of what 'classical' music is.

Percussionists have to be resourceful and there were (mostly) successful arrangements of Baroque and Romantic repertoire. Best of all was Stefan Beckett's arrangement of Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# Minor. It gave him the chance to let the notes breathe and to use rubato effectively.

It was Matthew Farthing's misfortune to have his pieces labelled 'bold' by Milos Karadaglic - the euphemism of choice for 'unpopular'. His choice of pieces may not have been the most immediately ingratiating for an audience but they were the most unapologetic for the rebarbative nature of percussion. What the pieces may have lacked in lyricism they made up for in terms of rhythm, timbre and resonance. Cashian's Tag starts off with a metallic rumble on a snare drum seeming to rise up from the depths before entering into a groove punctuated by a few notes played on prayer bowls. There is no denying the minimalist influence in Psappha's Spike. However there is a build up of tension and moments of release that make this a compelling piece to listen to. Probably what the judges were looking for were some compensatory moments of melody.

There was the occasional world premiere with Dani Howard's shimmering Mind Games beautifully played by Tom Highnam. As much as BBC Young Musician is a platform for performers, it should also offer young composers the broadest possible audience. One can always expect novel and perhaps unintended timbres. When Jess Wood played Gerassimez's Asventuras it involved the beat of drum sticks interspersed with the tapping and sliding of the hands on the drum skin. This was tabla playing but not as we know it.

All of the players were hugely talented, showed great versatility and were highly musical. However the night belonged to Elliott Gaston-Ross. What he achieved in all his performances was an intuitive understanding of the requirements of each piece. In Novotney's Minute of News he gave a shape to what is essentially a snare-drum curtain raiser. He knows how to play quietly and in Mugasatsu's Land Gaston-Ross gave a performance at times that was not just mellow but consoling and genuinely affecting.

Review - BBC Young Musician 2014 Strings Final

Elizaveta Tyun gave a poised and polished performance of the Tchaikovsky emphasizing Classical as well as Romantic elements in the music. The rapport between Tyun and her pianist emerged most clearly in Lutoslawski's Subito. There is always a danger in some contemporary works that a performer may over-emphasize the violence or over-luxuriate in lyricism. For Tyun everything was perfectly balanced - she was unafraid to emphasise the lyricism against the piano's relentlessly percussive accompaniment.

Full marks to Roberto Ruisi for being the violinist with the broadest repertoire from the Baroque to twentieth century classics. The Britten is a very difficult piece to perform and some of the finer details could have been clearer in his performance. But as the programme progressed his performance improved with limpid playing in the Bach and an unashamedly extrovert performance in Gershwin's It ain't necessarily so.

Dogyung Anna Im gave the best insight into musical talent and expertise when she admitted that she started off hating violin practice but now realizes that she has no choice in the matter anymore. It is a reminder of how many of the traits we admire can often be stubbornly involuntary. It was in the Kreisler Recitativo and Scherzo Caprice that she really came into her own taking her time over certain points in the piece.

If Robert Ruisi had the broadest repertoire of all the violinists, Juliana Myslow had the broadest repertoire in the entire strings category. Her performance of Grandjany's Rhapsodie showed a performer was unafraid to play very quietly. This made the dynamic contrast startling and dramatic. Part of the role of any performer is to be an effective advocate for unloved pieces and she did this brilliantly in the Hindemith.

William Dutton gave an unashamedly Romantic interpretation of Bloch's Nigun and revelled in the virtuosity of Rimsky-Korsakov but to my ears I would have wanted something slightly more intimate. I would have loved to have heard him play a Baroque or Classical piece in his programming. It would have given more of a contrast.

So did the judges get it right? An audacious choice for winner would have been Juliana Myslow for showing that the harp is not simply a delicate instrument. I agree with Jack Liebeck when he said that Elizaveta Tyun gave a serious performance and let nothing stand in the way of singing the melodic lines. Each of the players had flaws in their playing and each had a piece that was an individual highlight. But it was Tyun who, for me, gave the most satisfying performance throughout - she was there to serve the music. Some may have complained that her performance was introspective. However she was the player who attempted to draw you into the music rather than proclaim her presence. And even though she had only two pieces in her programme there was enough of a range within them to engage a listener. It was probably the virtuosity of Dutton's playing that won it for him and a sense that he could take risks more consistently. We will find out this Saturday whether he has what it takes to perform at Usher Hall.

Thoroughly Worthy Rattle

If it wasn't for TV series such as Leaving Home I wouldn't even have been aware of contemporary classical music.

Congratulations Sir Simon Rattle for getting the Order of Merit - hope you have many more years to come.

Remembering John Tavener

I went to a school where an atheist physics teacher expressed his enthusiasm for the work of John Tavener at a school assembly. It's no surprise that secularists are as enthused by the classical canon even if a large part of it was inspired by Judaeo-Christian scripture. What was surprising was that with much of Tavener's music, the religious connotations could not so easily be cleaved away. I had recently acquired Svyati on disc. The music was beautiful - but the constant references in pieces such as Eternal Memory to lost paradises left me cold.

And yet, even if I cannot be a part of a spiritual project, I admired Tavener for trying to create the transcendent. Tavener was not as backward looking as some of his detractors insisted. Late Carter and Webern were genuine enthusiasms. The drones and scales (Eastern and Western) that are the trademark of Tavener's music show a composer who was a true synthesist. The Indian elements to his music for a lay person such as myself seemed 'whole' rather superficial. The palindromes that pervade pieces such as The Hidden Treasure and Chant seem to exemplify the notion of beauty as the splendour of order (to paraphrase C.F. Ramuz on Stravinsky). Towards the end of Svyati the last note of the three-note minor scale motif played on the cello is raised by a semitone to A-natural. There is no resolution but an ascent towards silence.

The same three notes that conclude Svyati open the The Protecting Veil. Instead of a fading into silence the held A-natural seems to become ever more intense. It comforts but not because it is a relaxing piece. There is shade as well as light. In a secular age it is enough that Tavener achieved fame on his own terms and created a body of work distinctively his own.

Review - Songs Without Words, Erik Bosgraaf, Mahan Esfahani, Anna Meredith, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place, Saturday 19th October 2013

It is a truth partially acknowledged that the recorder is a victim of antipathy from two tribes. Musical philistines and sophisticates treat this instrument as a toy. For the rest of the public, their memories of the recorder are tainted by memories of sharp notes, spluttering and squeaks. It could be argued that the ubiquity of the recorder as a 'first instrument' in music education has worked against it.

But a renaissance has begun. Charlotte Barbour-Condini's success in 2012's BBC Young Musician Competition changed many people's perceptions. And Erik Bosgraaf's performance last Saturday will only continue this trend.

Berio's Gesti, composed for virtuoso and conductor Frans Brüggen, is full of the extended playing techniques adored by the post-war avant garde. Yes there was spluttering and squeaks - but this didn't deter the King's Place audience. The opening bars where the soloist just breathes into the recorder while rapidly tapping his fingers over the holes effectively turns the recorder into a percussion instrument. The lyrical is set alongside the rebarbative and multiple timbres inbetween. Bosgraaf held the audience's attention with a performance of agility and depth. It should come as no surprise that Pierre Boulez has given Bosgraaf permission to create a version of his 'Dialogue de l'ombre double'.

Even more successful was the seamless pairing of Bosgraaf's Bach arrangements with Berio's Lied. It was wise of the performers not to let clarinettist Thomas Lessels emerge from the back of the auditorium. Instead following the final bars of O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross Bosgraaf and the string players of the Aurora Orchestra stood and payed attention to Lessels' playing. It forced the audience to concentrate on the lyrical beauty inherent in Berio's piece and Lessels' virtuosity. The fact that the recorder and the clarinet are part of the same woodwind family was made abundantly clear.

What all the Bach pieces and arrangements had in common was the element of improvisation. The score is more a recipe to be altered at will rather than an procedure to be rigidly followed. The absence of tempo markings in the opening movements of the Bach concertos remind us of the transient nature of these pieces as well as the uncertain nature of their composition. No two performances of the same piece even by the same performers will ever be the same. The performances here were not faithful to the text but faithful to the music's spirit.

Anna Meredith insisted Origami Songs is not a concerto for recorders and orchestra. Each movement is a miniature in which the recorder inhabits a particular musical world. Right from the opening Birds movement with Mahan Esfahani's rhythmic harpsichord playing there is a strong dance element throughout the piece. Meredith creates some wonderful textures and knows how to pair instruments. In Birds she paired a high register E-flat clarinet with a sopranino recorder. In a later movement she pulled off the improbable feat of having a bass recorder not just compete but sing with a muted trombone and (I think) a bass clarinet. In the absence of a conductor, the players took turns to conduct and give cues. Origami Songs is a theatrical piece that should appeal to any intelligent, open-minded listener. Not only should it be recorded but the score should be published as soon as possible.