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Enrique Granados ( 27 July 1867 – 24 March 1916) wrote piano music, chamber music, songs, “zarzuelas”, and an orchestral tone poem based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, but it is his piano music for which he is best remembered and revered today, and his “Goyescas” suite for piano, premiered in 1911, is one of the cornerstones of the concert repertoire. Inspired by paintings by Francisco Goya, the individual pieces in the suite have evocative titles (“The Maiden and the Nightingale”, “Conversation at the Window”, “The Ballad of Love and Death”), and are deeply romantic, impressionistic and atmospheric in character. Granados admitted to having fallen in love with Goya’s work “the psychology…..and his palette…his quarrels, loves and flatteries” and his reflects his love of the artist’s oeuvre in his lyrical and passionate music.

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Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?

I came to composing by a rather unusual route. I was studying cello at Birmingham Conservatoire and during a musicianship course was asked to compose a piece in the style of Bartok. I quickly realised how much I had enjoyed doing this and within a few weeks had an interview to change onto the composition course. In the following couple of years I became familiar with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s music and this inspired me to keep going and find my own voice. Two years later, after accepting to teach me for my Masters Degree at the Royal College of Music, Mark continued to inspire me, this time in person.

Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

My family have been the most significant influence. Without their continual support and understanding I am sure I would not have a career as a composer.

What have been the greatest challenges/frustrations of your career so far?

I find the greatest challenge to be balancing my time between composing and all the other things a composer must do to maintain one’s career. Being able to do this successfully whilst still finding the concentration and imaginative space one needs should not be underestimated.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?

Imagining the sound of the musicians and the process of working together with them on a new piece is something that I find incredibly motivating since this is a highlight of the whole process. When the ideas are flowing, I find the working process of composing very pleasurable.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles and orchestras?

Building a long relationship with a particular ensembles make the experiences of working together all the more pleasurable. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group stands out for me in this regard. I got to know the ensemble and organisation as a student, received opportunities to develop my compositional voice through working with them, and continue to have a strong relationship now in my career as a professional composer. Their virtuosity and brilliance makes every encounter special.

Of which works are you most proud?

When I achieve something in a piece that is ‘new’, adventurous or challenging for me, that is when I am most proud.

How do you work?

I start composing first thing and work through until I feel my concentration diminishing. I work with pencil on paper for much of the process, moving to Sibelius when I feel I have enough of an idea about the piece. I use a keyboard and sometimes my cello too, especially to try things out later on.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

My friends. I find nothing more enjoyable that hearing and watching a friend perform or a friends’ music being performed; feeling their sound, expression and interpretation, each time knowing them a little deeper.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

My Proms debut in 2012 with ‘At the Speed of Stillness’. I’ll never forget the feeling of standing on that stage for the first time to take a bow.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring composers?

Write the music that you want to hear.

And performers?

Play music that is being written now, before it is too late.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Somewhere unexpected.

The composer Charlotte Bray has emerged as a distinctive and outstanding talent of her generation. Exhibiting uninhibited ambition and desire to communicate, her music is exhilarating, inherently vivid, and richly expressive with lyrical intensity. Charlotte studied under Mark Anthony Turnage at the Royal College of Music and previously under Joe Cutler at the Birmingham Conservatoire. She participated in the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition Course with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg, and at the Tanglewood Music Centre with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read-Thomas.

Read Charlotte’s full biography

(picture © Michael Wickham)

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For the musically-inclined there can be few better ways to mark a significant birthday than to gather musicians, friends and family together in celebration, and this was the format for a delightful and varied concert on the 80th birthday of Neil Chaffey, concert artist manager. The concert comprised musicians represented by Neil Chaffey and the programme demonstrated the breadth, variety and individual talents of these artists. And with an audience of family, friends and supporters, the atmosphere at St John’s Smith Square was warm and convivial.

After a rousing rendition of the Largo from Handel’s ‘Xerxes’, performed by Chaffey himself on the magnificent SJSS organ, we remained in the Baroque era for songs and arias by Purcell, Blow, Handel and Monteverdi by The Musicke Company (soprano, countertenor, baroque cello and harpsichord). This provided an elegant first part to the concert and contrasted beautifully with a performance of John McCabe’s Clarinet Sonata. Neil Chaffey and John McCabe first met as students at Manchester University in the mid-1950s and Neil comissioned the sonata in 1969 when he was Artistic Director of the Macclesfield Arts Festival. This haunting work is in various linked sections which together make up a continuous movement, and the individuality of each instrument is given voice (including some interesting effects achieved by plucking the piano’s strimgs) while letting all three work with roughly the same motifs. It was a very committed and absorbing performance of a challenging work.

Another striking contrast came with Gitarrissima, an all-female guitar quintet from Vienna, who played well-known and some lesser-known works arranged for guitar (including the intriguing baby “octave” guitar) with great brio, virtuosity and individuality (their renditions of the Tritschtratsch Polka and Hoe-Down from Copland’s ‘Rodeo’ ballet suite were particularly enjoyable and entertaining).

The second half of the concert was mainly taken up with piano music, opening with an intimate and sensitively nuanced performance of works by Bridge, Schumann and Kapustin by Neil Chaffey’s pianist daughter Alicia. ‘Rosemary’ by Frank Bridge, dedicated to Alicia’s late mother, was particularly poignant, and her approach to Schumann’s Fantasiestucke op.12 demonstrated a clear appreciation of the composer’s shifting moods, from tender and introspective in Des Abends to the extrovert Aufschwung. After the spirited jazzy Kapustin, Alicia was joined by her duo partner Marzia Hudajarova in a charming rendition of Fauré’s ever-popular Dolly Suite.

The final part of the concert featured the Fujita sisters Arisa, Honoka and Megumi, who together make up the Fujita Piano Trio. Initially, Megumi gave a solo performance of three of Chopin’s most popular Etudes (Black Keys, Thirds and Revolutionary) in which she balanced power and richness of sound with a wonderful delicacy of touch. Joined by her sisters, the trio performed Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in c minor, entirely from memory, which made for an intensely musical and impressively concentrated performance, and thrilling close to a most enjoyable concert and a wonderful musical birthday tribute to Neil Chaffey.

 

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A concert is an occasion, an event, and as such has its own special etiquette and “rules of engagement”.

As the audience we have certain responsibilities, including arriving on time, sitting quietly during the performance, showing our appreciation for the performer and being courteous towards our fellow concert-goers and the performer, who has worked so hard to create this performance to share with us.

The age of the smartphone constantly threatens to disrupt these “rules” (coughing and the noises of living, breathing human beings are acceptable aspects of the live concert experience), and venues continually remind audiences to turn off their phones (and other electrical devices such as watches with alarms) prior to the start of the concert. It is, sadly, all too common for a phone or two to go off during a performance, but generally this is tolerated and met with a sigh or tut from audiences members (fortunately, I have never been party to the kind of reaction as described in this article).

But it’s not just a ringing phone which can disturb concert goers: I was forced to watch most of a concert by Yuja Wang at Queen Elizabeth Hall via the video function of an iPhone belonging to the person seated in front of me. Not only is it generally forbidden to film or photograph at concerts, it is also extremely distracting to have a phone screen glowing in the gloaming of the concert hall. And the other night at Wigmore Hall, where Igor Levit completed his Beethoven Sonatas odyssey, the young man seated on my right checked his phone every 10 minutes, presumably to check in with his Facebook chums. This was done silently but the lit up screen was an intrusion on my enjoyment of the concert. It does make me wonder why people bother going to concerts if they can’t do without their phone for a couple of hours. It is also discourteous to the performer: never mind that we were sitting in Row X – if you’re checking your phone, you’re clearly not concentrating on the performance.

In a programme of late Beethoven no less. Why would one even go if one isn’t prepared to put everything aside for those sonatas?

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Of course performers have responsibilities to the audience as well. In creating a concert, the performer makes a virtual “contract” with the audience (and a formal one with the venue/promoter), and the audience are complicit in that by attending the concert and fulfilling their side of the arrangement, as noted above. In a recent blog post, music journalist and writer Jessica Duchen describes a concert where the performer seemed displeased that the hall was only half full and manifested his displeasure via his performance. Whatever was going on with the performer, it seems singularly unfair to the audience to treat them with antagonism. They have, after all, paid to hear you play (that “contract” again) and even if you’re tired or ill, you have made the commitment to perform.

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The green room at London’s Wigmore Hall

Then there are the responsibilities of the venue towards performer and audience. The vast majority of venues are very well run, with friendly, helpful staff and pleasant areas and bars where people can meet and socialise. Performers are well-looked after with proper facilities to warm up and get changed, important aspects which help make the performer feel comfortable and at ease (as far as possible) ahead of the concert. But I have come across stories of performers being told to change the programme at short notice, because the promoter demands it, and a recent case where the performer arrived at the venue and was not permitted a proper warm up on the piano, nor was the tuner given an appropriate amount of time to prepare the instrument. There was no green room, and no refreshments for her. Of course she gave the recital, because she is a professional, but I suspect the experience left a sour taste in her mouth and it is unlikely she will hurry to perform at the same venue again.

A concert is a shared experience, with shared responsibilities. When these coalesce in a virtuous circle of good practice, courtesy and commitment, we should all be guaranteed an enjoyable and engaging experience.

 

Hall half full, glass half empty – blog article by Jessica Duchen