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Guest review by Jennifer Mckerras 

One of the great joys of lunchtime recitals is having the opportunity to see young performers at the beginning of their professional careers. And two such were given a prime performance opportunity at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 24 October. Chanae Curtis (soprano) and Ella O’Neill (piano) garnered a large and appreciative audience for their recital, including a half-term crowd of families with children of all ages.

Curtis and O’Neill began their programme with Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido, Op.65. They continued with Three Poems of Fiona MacLeod by C.T. Griffes, and concluded with a selection of lieder by Strauss.

Chanae Curtis, soprano
Ella O’Neill, pianist

Chanae Curtis has a truly superb voice: velvety caramel in tone. She also has a tremendous range of colour and force, which this programme fully exploited. The very first item (Beethoven) is a long and complicated piece for both singer and accompanist, and requires several mood changes. Curtis and O’Neill guided the audience through all the twists and turns of the aria, and received justifiably rapturous applause at its end.

It was, however, in the American repertoire that Curtis really shone. She seemed to relax and connect with the audience in a way that had not been as present in the Beethoven. The Griffes songs are perhaps a little less well known by British audiences, and really deserve to be known better. Curtis’ handling of the texts was deft and well-nuanced, though sometimes the very full acoustic of the church building caused the text to be lost.

Ella O’Neill is currently undertaking postgraduate studies at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with Simon Lepper. In this recital she was a masterful accompanist, and I think has a tremendous future. She navigated the twists and turns of mood in the Beethoven with aplomb, and her handling of the Griffes and the Strauss lieder was delicate and assured. O’Neill has a great stage presence: calm and unfussed, she has developed the gift of allowing the music to speak for itself. This is a tremendous ability in a player at the beginning of her professional career! She is also adept in giving both soloist and audience total confidence in her playing; one feels that very little could shake her.

The Strauss lieder were delivered with great assurance from both performers, and were hugely enjoyed by the audience. The encore was a spiritual, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, in an arrangement by Margaret Bonds. Again, Curtis found a new level of connection with the audience and the text – she positively glowed as she sang. It is a pleasure to see a performer wholeheartedly inhabit the music in this way.

The reception for Curtis and O’Neill was overwhelmingly positive; even the half-term passers-by stayed captivated until the end. These performers are certainly a pair to watch for the future.

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

When I was a student at university I was expecting to begin a career as a classroom music teacher.  It was only through watching fellow choral scholars begin their professional lives in London choirs that awoke me to the idea that you could sing for a living.  My colleagues and I often have people ask us, post concert, “so what’s your day job?” but that could so easily have been me asking that question.  It was when I observed the early career paths of ex-students like John Mark Ainsley and Paul Agnew that it dawned on me that this was an actual profession and that I might have a go at it.  I have my wife to thank for giving me the impetus and courage in my early twenties to give up my teaching job and try becoming a freelance singer.

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

My musical education has been fairly sponge-like and I have been happy to learn from anyone.  My earliest singing teachers gave me a grounding which I never forget: Valerie Heath Davis was a chorus member at ENO who gave me my first singing lessons outside school and taught me how to breath for singing.  She prepared me for my choral trials.  Janet Edmunds looked after me during university and introduced me to this thing called Lieder.  One of her mantra’s was ‘Sing for the joy of singing’.  I never understood it at the time but I most certainly do now.  Then came David Mason and David Pollard, the latter introducing me to the idea that I could be a soloist and that I might consider retraining at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.  All these people have had a huge influence on the direction of my life and career.

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

I don’t feel my career has been that full of challenges in all honesty.  It’s not that I’ve taken the easy road, but that I have enjoyed myself in practically everything I do.  I try not to commit to work that I think I am unable to fulfil – something that is too high, too low, to heavy a voice type or whatever – and so far I think I have sung within my comfort zone. I have been surrounded by people who support what I do, especially my family, and this has made my life pretty easy, in the scheme of things.  I have no complaints.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

I have very warm memories of Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress at Sadlers Wells with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Richard Hickox.  The cast was magnificent and made up pretty much of my friendliest colleagues.  I hugely enjoyed that experience.  I also treasured being Billy in Britten’s Billy Budd at Opera North last year, directed by my sister-in-law Orpha Phelan and conducted by Garry Walker.  That was also a perfect storm of artistic elements.  I try not to listen to my own recordings in general; I’m very glad other people enjoy them but it’s too much like listening to your own voice on your answer-phone message.

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

I like the ambiguity of this question because it implies that, although you might think you play or sing something especially well, others listening might shake their head in disbelief.  One’s own perception of a performance is often at odds with how others witness it.  Sometimes I have been in vocal difficulties, have managed to make it through a show on a wing and a prayer, and people have come up afterwards and said how wonderfully they thought I had performed.  On the other hand, times when I’ve thought I was in glorious voice have sometimes been met with a friendly nod.  I have no real answer to this question otherwise.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Repertoire choice is not always something over which one has final control.  In terms of recital programmes, I can offer promoters my current choice (and my Schubert cycle project at the moment is very palatable, it would seem) but even then music societies and festivals often have a particular theme or composer’s anniversary that they would like you to match and I do my best to accommodate that.  As for opera roles, I have very little choice in what is offered to me.  I can accept or decline the work; that’s where my power ends.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

There are two recital venues I have sung in recently that have stood out in my mind as being exceptional and for different reasons.  One is the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, one of the wood-panelled, upstairs officers’ quarters that are used for recitals.  The acoustic was so generous to me as a singer, without being too washy, that I hardly felt I needed to sing at all.  The other is the small studio at the Crucible, Sheffield, home of Music-in-the-Round where I am singer in residence.  I love the intimacy of this venue and its re-invention of the concert space.  It re-defines one’s relationship with the audience.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

The 2014 Last Night of the Proms was very memorable although, when I think back on it, my time on stage was a bit of a blur.  What I remember most is finishing my last item, rushing back to my dressing room as the post-adrenalin hysteria began to kick in, changing out of my tails and into normal clothes and slipping back into the hall, high up in the audience, so that I could witness the last few pieces on the programme.  The atmosphere was electric.  I also vividly recall Peter Sellar’s semi-staging of Bach’s St John Passion at the Philharmonie in Berlin, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.  I didn’t have all that much to sing in fact but the experience of performing Christus right in the centre of that drama was overwhelmingly intense.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

This is a question I sometimes ask of conservatoire students – otherwise we may not always be sure what it is we are aiming for.  I’ve decided my goal is to be happy, to be able to work with wonderful musicians at a high level, enough to live comfortably but not so much that the stress becomes a burden.

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

All the predictable things, really: professionalism, which means decent preparation, time keeping (as in one’s diary rather than being on the beat!), being an open, supportive colleague, self-discipline, that sort of thing.  Those things form the basic grounding that I would hope any musician, any person, would value as being important.  The idea that being an extraordinary artist allows one to overlook these ‘because you’re special’ doesn’t really wash with me.  Other than that, for singers especially I would promote honesty of communication with one’s audience as being something worthwhile fostering.

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

Still working at the highest level I can manage but also ready for approaching retirement, whatever that may mean.  If that means teaching/coaching a little more, perhaps writing more music, then so be it.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

The knowledge that the people I love are safe, comfortable and happy.  A beautiful view on a glorious day with me striding through the middle of it.  I don’t even need to be with my loved ones, I am happy to be on my own in peace and quiet, but to know that they are content while I’m out and about puts me in my best head-space.

What is your most treasured possession?

I thought a lot about this question; in the end, I guess I’m not so keen on the idea of a possession being that important to me.  People are important but of course I do not own any of them.  So my answer has to be my voice.

What do you enjoy doing most?

This is a really hard question too; doing something for fun, like hiking a beautiful trail in wonderful scenery or doing professionally?  The most enjoyable thing?  I don’t know.  But It’s very likely to be singing, especially in rehearsals.

What is your present state of mind?

I’m content.  That’s what Billy says in Billy Budd and it struck quite a chord with me then.  “That’s all right, Sir, I’m content”.  Yup, that’s me right now.

RW: Here’s an extra question for fun.

If I weren’t a singer, what would I like to have been?

In my next life, I want to come back as a dancer.  I wish I could move like those amazing dancers, classical ballet, jazz, tap, latin, I don’t mind what.  And I wish I could lead my partner with confidence rather than have them tut, give up on me and just take over.  Happens every time!

RW: And another – is there anything you wish you could do better?

I can’t hula-hoop.  Every time I try, it has my wife in stitches of laughter.  It just drops off my waist and round my ankles.  Very embarrassing.  Also, when I try to swim front crawl but legs alone, with a float or whatever, I go backwards.  My wife finds this hysterically funny also.

Roderick Williams’ new CD, with Susie Allan, piano, ‘Celebrating English Song’ is available now on the SOMM label. Further information here

 

Roderick Williams encompasses a wide repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital. He won the Singer of the Year Award in the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and was awarded the OBE for services to music in June 2017.

He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and is particularly associated with the baritone roles of Mozart. He has also sung world premieres of operas by, among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van der Aa and Robert Saxton.

Roderick Williams has sung concert repertoire with all the BBC orchestras, and many other ensembles including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, Manchester Camerata, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen, Le Concert Spirituel, Rias Kammerchor and Bach Collegium Japan. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Bath and Melbourne.

In 2015 he sang Christus in Peter Sellars’ staging of the St John Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle – a performance now available on DVD.  He will sing this role again with both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2019.

Recent and future engagements include Oronte in Charpentier’s Medée, Toby Kramer in Van der Aa’s Sunken Garden and Don Alfonso/Così for English National Opera, the title role in Eugene Onegin for Garsington Opera, Van der Aa’s After Life at Melbourne State Theatre, Van der Aa’s Sunken Garden at Opera de Lyon, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and with Dallas Opera, the title role in Billy Budd for Opera North and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Papageno Die Zauberflöte and Ulisse  Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a concert performance of Ned Keene/Peter Grimes with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Last Night of the 2014 BBC Proms, as well as concert performances with many of the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles. He is also an accomplished recital artist who can be heard at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, London Song Festival, the Musikverein, Vienna, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and on Radio 3, where he has participated in Iain Burnside’s Voices programme.

His numerous recordings include Vaughan Williams, Berkeley and Britten operas for Chandos and an extensive repertoire of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos.

Roderick Williams is also a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. He was Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder + in April 2016.

 

(Artist photo: Groves Artists)

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Arnold Schoenberg – Drei Klavierstücke, Op 11

Pierre Boulez – Troisième Sonate pour piano

Anton Webern – Variationen für Klavier op.27

Gilbert Amy – Sonate pour Piano

ZeD classics

It takes courage and chutzpah to play this kind of repertoire, but James Iman clearly relishes the special challenges of this music, both interpretative and technical. He’s a keen advocate of 20th and 21st century music and his enthusiasm and commitment to it is impressive (we are friends on Facebook and his posts about the repertoire he is working on – from the “great” works of the 20th century such as Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time to newly-minted music for piano – are intriguing and exciting, and have also introduced composers and music hitherto unknown to me). While some may regard this approach as “uncompromising”, I prefer to see James Iman as an intrepid musical adventurer. So first off, bravo to him for committing this music to disc. It is not performed that widely, programme planners and promoters regarding it as “too difficult” or “inaccessible” to sell to audiences (my view is that if this music is excluded from concert programmes, how on earth can audiences decide if it is too difficult or not…..?). And for the pianist, this music presents special challenges in the learning and practice process –  as James Iman says, the works on this disc “lack almost entirely the comfortable octaves, thirds, and sixths of common practice music…..[and] the conventional gestures pianists are comfortable playing, arpeggios, chords and inversions, etc.” In addition, Boulez and Amy pose unique problems in that “they offer freedom for the performer to order the material — though this is within the confines are certain rules set out by each composer. This means that a lot of time is spent reading the rules and searching the score to understand the basic ‘lay of the land’“.

Iman’s adventurous approach is amply reflected in this his debut disc: here is piano music by four composers all imbued with a boundless spirit of adventure, experimentation, and innovation. Schoenberg’s Op 11 is the jumping off point for this pianistic and compositional adventure: the Op 11 had a direct influence on Boulez’s Third Sonata. Meanwhile, Gilbert Amy wrote his own Piano Sonata in the years following the premiere of Boulez’s Third. Webern had a significant influence on the way Darmstadt composers used the twelve-tone note row: Gilbert Amy introduces certain stylistic features of the Variation’s into his Piano Sonata. In addition, Boulez and Amy also make use of non-conformist scores – printed in multiple colours with innovative bindings they are almost artworks in their own right.

For me what distinguishes all the music on this disc (and I freely admit that I do not hear this kind of repertoire that frequently) is its composers’ interest in exploring and utilising the piano’s timbre and its percussive qualities – and this pianist’s acute response to this. It is not “tuneful” nor melodic music; rather it reveals piquant juxtapositions of sounds, individual notes, unexpected intervallic relationships, repeated motifs, rhythmic clusters, fermatas and silences. It’s all exceptionally well-executed, Iman’s playing admirably tempered to the resonances and micro nuances of this music, which is mirrored in the quality of the recording. His performance of the Boulez Third Sonata equals Maurizio Pollini’s animated performance of the Second Sonata at the Royal Festival Hall back in 2011. Few can rise to the challenge of this music and meet it head on with conviction, musicality, and a supreme alertness to its myriad details and quirks: James Iman more than achieves this. Indeed, throughout the album one has a very clear sense of his total commitment to this music, and also how comfortable he feels in this repertoire.

To those who claim this music lacks emotion, I would direct you straight to Schoenberg’s Op 11, played here not only with precise attention to detail, sonic clarity and rhythmic vitality but also a profound sensitivity to this music’s intensity, its fleeting writing and ambiguous emotional landscapes.

It’s no easy thing to be a specialist in 20th and 21st century music. As a performer the music itself is taxing. It’s also difficult to overcome the intensely visceral reactions people can have (the invective that can be deployed is occasionally overwhelming!).

James Iman

Recommended

Meet the Artist – James Iman

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Guest post by Tara Yonder

All it took was one comment. From someone whom I previously regarded as a friend but later realised was in fact a “frenemy”. I always knew that Wagner would tear us apart, to misquote the song by Joy Division. That composer above all others seems to provoke the most extreme reactions, divides people down party lines and creates a polarity of opinion akin to the binary contretemps one sees on Twitter virtually ever day: if you don’t agree with me (about Wagner) you are against me. He’s the Marmite composer.

“Perhaps you are growing up” said the Frenemy in response to my posting a picture of the score of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, transcribed for piano by the late great Glenn Gould. I’d been meaning to learn the piece for some years, having first heard it on the soundtrack to the film ‘A Dangerous Method’, and I’d managed to find a score of the Gould transcription in Foyles (which has an excellent sheet music department). I was looking forward to getting my fingers on it and to treating it as a long-term project (it’s about 16 pages long).

“Perhaps you are growing up“. The primary inference is that Wagner is for grown ups, for “proper” mature connoisseurs of art music. This of course is ridiculous. Music should, and does, cross generations and age groups. I have friends in their 20s and 30s who adore Wagner – and friends in their 70s who do not. It reminded me of a comment from a friend a few years ago, “Did you start to like classical music when you reached your 40s?”, thereby immediately reinforcing the common misconception that classical music is only for old people. No, I replied, I’ve always liked classical music. I grew up with classical music, I cut my eager concert-going teeth on the CBSO’s thrilling concerts at Birmingham Old Town Hall under the baton of Louis Fremaux and later a young, rookie conductor with wild tousled curls…..

What stung more was the Frenemy’s patronising tone, all too evident even in an impersonal email, like some elderly uncle from the 1950s chiding a gauche youngster.  Because it was not the first time this person had taken this tone with me – commenting negatively on my writing, nitpicking my reviews, criticising my proof-reading skills (which was pretty rich coming from someone whose own emails were regularly sprinkled with literals and spelling errors), even once telling me I needed to be “taken down a peg or two“, sneering at my liking for certain concert pianists, describing one of them as “the emperor’s new clothes” without actually having heard said artist in a live concert……(you can hear the pianist in question playing Schumann at the end of this article – it brings me to the brink of tears).

***

I caught sight of the score of the Siegfried Idyll on the lid of the piano and felt the hurt, the insult welling up inside me again. Tinged with anger too, because why shouldn’t I change my mind about a composer? Why shouldn’t my tastes shift and alter? Such things are not set in stone, and it’s certainly not about “growing up” – I am already a fully-fledged grown up, I’ve had a mortgage and a “family car”. It’s about changing taste, and exploring the rich and varied repertoire, and finding music to play which will challenge me as well as giving me pleasure.

But the music was ruined for me. I couldn’t play it, couldn’t even lift my hands to the piano to play the opening phrase – so poignantly beautiful, so delicately romantic. So I shoved it right at the back of my bookcase, returned to practising Chopin’s First Ballade and Schumann’s Romance in C, and opened Ravel’s Miroirs beside the piano, with the intention of tackling Oiseaux Tristes.

All of this is uncomfortably redolent of a comment I once received via Twitter in response to my early explorations of a late sonata by Schubert. Someone had the temerity to suggest that, as a non-professional pianist, I was not “worthy” of this music. It’s an attitude I’ve encountered occasionally amongst professional pianists, that certain repertoire should be “off limits” to amateurs (notably Gaspard de la Nuit and Islamey). To which I assert, the music was written to be played – whether to a full house at Carnegie Hall or at home in the privacy of one’s living room. Brilliantly or badly, we should be playing this fantastic repertoire we as pianists are so lucky to have.

One day, when the hurt has healed, I’ll return to the Siegfried Idyll. Meanwhile, I’ll take refuge in my beloved Schubert, and Schumann and Chopin. If the Frenemy reads this, I suspect he would accuse me of being “over-sensitive” or of having “a sense of humour failure”. But I’m a writer, and a musician, and sensitivity is woven into every fibre of my being. And I’m glad it is, because that sensitivity allows me to shape the music I play, to linger over a piquant harmony or interesting intervallic relationship, to sculpt and contour a phrase, and to remain alert to the micro-nuances and shifting emotional landscapes of the music I love to play and listen to.