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Olivier Messiaen’s monumental work Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus (Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus) surely ranks amongst the “greats” of the piano repertoire, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas in terms of its scale, variety and pianistic challenges. It is one of the most ground-breaking works in 20th-century piano music, a work which has accrued iconic status and deep respect. It combines richly-hued romanticism and the spare modernism that influenced Messiaen’s pupil, Pierre Boulez, and reveals many of Messiaen’s preoccupations and interests – birdsong, eastern rhythms and instruments, cosmology, religious iconography and his own deeply-held Catholic faith.

French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys the special distinction of having known Messiaen personally, and he studied with Yvonne Loriod (who premiered the work in March 1945 and who became the composer’s second wife in 1961). Aimard has a long-standing and highly-respected relationship with Messiaen’s piano music and it remains a core part of his repertoire. He is also a champion of modern and contemporary piano repertoire, and as a result he brings to this music a special understanding of Messiaen’s unique approach to pitch, rhythm, sonority and attack.

Read my full review here

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Saturday 9th April, Drayton Arms Theatre, London SW5

Opera in small spaces is not new, though I must admit I only discovered the Drayton Arms Theatre in South Kensington last winter when I attended Euphonia Opera Company’s splendid production of ‘Don Pasquale’. The space really is tiny – a handful of rows of banked benches, upholstered with old pairs of jeans, and an area not much bigger than an average-sized living room for the stage. Covent Garden it ain’t – and much the better for it, for Euphonia is a company of young professional singers who seem to actively relish the challenge of performing in spaces like Drayton Arms Theatre. Their pared-down productions, with the minimum of setting and costumes, and only a digital piano to provide the music, bring the opera right up close and personal.

Euphonia’s 2016 Spring season has included ‘La Traviata’ and a new production of ‘Iphigénie en Tauride’, Gluck’s powerful setting of Euripides’ play. I went with two opera-loving friends,  regulars at ROH and ENO and far more seasoned opera-goers than I. The narrative teeters on the brink of tragedy until almost the very end, when Iphigenia realises that the man held captive and about to be sacrificed is in fact her estranged brother Orestes. All’s well that ends well.

In the tiny space of Drayton Arms Theatre the action was intense and intimate. The singers are only a few feet away and when they sing, you can really feel the air crackle with the power and emotion of their voices. Without the support of elaborate sets and costumes, the action is far more immediate, pulling you into the heart of drama from the outset. When we went downstairs to the noisy pub for the interval, it felt as if we had been yanked out of an alternative reality, and as one of my friends remarked, you realise how removed you are from the action when sitting in the dress circle at the Coliseum. The entire cast sang with passion and commitment. Stand out performances, for me, were by Turiya Haudenhuyse in the title role, and tenor Joseph Doody, who played Pylades.

For those who are less familiar with opera, or who are reluctant to venture into ROH or the Coliseum, Euphonia’s pared down productions are a great introduction to the form. Productions are sung in their original language, with English surtitles, and you can nip down to the pub in the interval for a pint, and take your drink into the theatre.

This season’s productions have also included pre-performance interviews with legendary opera director John Copley CBE (Patron of The Drayton Arms Opera Series) and Euphonia President, the distinguished scientist, broadcaster and author, Professor Robert Winston.

Euphonia Opera Company

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First page of the autograph manuscript of St John Passion
Hearing J S Bach’s St John Passion in a Baroque church, as I did on Good Friday, connected this powerful and stirring work more closely to its original conception and performance. This was the annual Good Friday performance at St John’s Smith Square, a Baroque church in the heart of Westminster, given by Polyphony with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen Layton.

Bach composed his Johannes Passion (St John Passion) in 1724, the composer’s first year as director of church music in Leipzig. The work received its first performance on 7 April 1724, at Good Friday Vespers, at the St Nicholas Church. The work is in two sections, intended to flank a sermon, and the text, which retells the events of Good Friday leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, death and deposition from the Cross, is drawn from chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of John in the Luther Bible. To the modern audience, the text may seem arcane, and the unfolding narrative feels almost operatic, but to the congregation in Bach’s church, it would have been entirely familiar, as were the chorales which used well-known hymn tunes and texts. The work comprises choruses, chorales, arias and recitatives, with some highly effective and arresting “word painting” to reflect the meaning of certain words or passages.

In this performance, the role of St John the Evangelist was sung by Stuart Jackson whose tenor voice was eloquent, pure and mellifluous. Jackson was joined by Neal Davies, a sombre Christus, whose interplay with Roderick Williams’ Pilate was gripping and intense. Julia Doyle, Iestyn Davies, and Gwilym Bowen all responded with sensitivity to the spiritual substance of the text and the profound drama of the narrative. Julia Doyle’s soprano arias were especially luminous, while Iestyn Davies’ counter-tenor was clear and ethereal.

Polyphony sang with a full, rounded sound with impressively crisp diction which brought a dramatic immediacy to the text, for example in the chorus when Christ is brought before Pilate and the choir become the baying crowd. Stephen Layton drew a rich, colourful sound from the OAE with some particularly fine contributions from the woodwind and an elegant cello continuo. The pacing of the drama was also expertly judged by Layton with impactful and moving pauses and longer silences to allow the audience time to digest and reflect upon the highly charged and emotional narrative.

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The acclaimed Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes organised a mini-series of three concerts featuring music by his countrymen to coincide with an exhibition of the work of Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup (1880 – 1928), the first ever outside of Norway. It is a mark of how important this artist is in the cultural landscape of Norway that Andsnes came to the leafy suburbs of south-east London to present these concerts, which amply proved, in the words of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s director Ian Dejardin, “there is more to Norwegian music than Grieg”. In addition to exploring the music, visitors were invited to view the exhibition of Nikolai Astrup’s colourful and expressive paintings, prints and woodcuts.

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Nikolai Astrup Midsummer Eve Bonfire, SBF/DNB/The Astrup Collection/KODE Art Museums of Bergen (photo: Stuart Leech)

Music was important to Astrup. He grew up in Jølster in the region of Sogn og Fjordane, a landscape of scattered farms around a scenic lake, surrounded by high mountains. With no towns or large hubs nearby, access to classical music was minimal and the music that was most accessible to Astrup as he was growing up was Norwegian folk music, in particular the type played on the Hardanger fiddle. Dancers and fiddle-players appear frequently in Astrup’s ‘Midsummer Bonfires’ paintings, and references to music and musicians feature in many of his other paintings, along with the landscape of the area of Norway he knew well. Thus the programmes for the three concerts at Dulwich Picture Gallery revolved around the theme of Norwegian folk music and its influence on composers who succeeded Grieg. The music was selected to reflect the themes and beauty of Astrup’s paintings.

Read my full review here