Contemporary Classical

Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, File Under?, Miller Theater, New York

Stile Antico Returns to St. Mary’s

Photo: Eduardus Lee.

Stile Antico Returns to Sing at St. Mary’s

 

Church of Saint Mary the Virgin

November 9, 2025

Published in Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – The British choral group Stile Antico has been together for twenty years, and while they have premiered several new works, the ensemble specializes in repertoire from the Renaissance era. Indeed, this past Saturday on Miller Theatre’s Early Music series, at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in midtown Manhattan, the theme of their program was “The Golden Renaissance.” At St. Mary’s, Stile Antico presented works by noteworthy composers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. They may be lumped together in a historical pigeon hole, but Renaissance composers exemplify a plethora of approaches, and the music often is quite demanding to sing. Stile Antico took a versatile approach in their program, sometimes performing with their full complement of a dozen singers and at others with subgroups thereof. Thus, the concert afforded listeners intimate experiences as well as resounding anthems sung in full voice. 

 

Some of the selections were the usual suspects on choral programs, but there were also a few less familiar pieces that proved worthy companions to the hits of the Renaissance. One of those that might be considered a “deep cut” was  “A un niño llorando,” a villancico by Franciso Guerrero (1528-1599). Its subject was the story of the gifts given to the infant Jesus by the magi. Beginning with a solo by soprano Rebecca Hickey, its compound rhythms provided both the lilt of a cradle song and a framework for hocketing between parts. Two other Spanish composers were represented on the program, with Recessit pastor noster from the Tenebrae Responsories by Tomá Luís De Victoria (1548-1611) performed with dramatic declamation and cascading linear overlaps. Jubilate Deo by Cristóbal De Morales (1500-1553) is peppered with plangent dissonances. Apparently the composer took his jubilation quite seriously. All was well in the end, with the final cadence of both parts of the motet arriving to rest on a major chord. These works, as well as most of the other music on the program, have been recorded by Stile Antico. 

 

A more festive mood was captured in the performances of O clap your hands and Hosanna to the Son of David, both by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625). Short phrases ricocheted between subsections of the choir, delivered in crisply animated fashion. Ein Kind geborn, by Michael Praetorius (1571-1599), subdivides the choir into various smaller units who engage in a kind of call and response, the resulting antiphony building to a thrilling tutti finale. 

Clemens non Papa (1510-1555) is a composer who is underserved by current ensembles. His best known piece, Ego flos campi, was sung in a luxuriantly legato rendition. Stile Antico’s interpretative approach has been enriched over the years, with more dynamic and articulative shadings and ever greater fluidity of pacing. Hearing them sing something again, such as Ego flos campi, underscores their evolving approach to this repertoire. In Manus Tuas, by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) is another piece that shows Stile Antico to their best advantage, the ensemble making the most of plangent cross-relations to paint the aspects of devotion and surrender integral to its text. 

 

Included on the program was The Phoenix and The Turtle, commissioned nearly a decade ago from Huw Watkins. A setting of Shakespeare, various explanations of the poem’s meaning have been suggested, from symbolizing various lovers to eulogizing Christian martyrs.Watkins uses a polytonal framework that has a number of added note chords, corruscating motivic entrances, and much antiphony. The result sounded well in the reverberant acoustics of St. Mary’s.

 

This was the 500th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Stile Antico has recorded an entire album of his music as part of their trio of Golden Renaissance CDs, with the others representing Byrd and Josquin.  All are well worth seeking out. Two pieces by the composer William Byrd were featured in the concert. A recusant Catholic, Byrd vented his anger at the persecution of those of his faith in “Exsurge Domine,” the concert’s fiery opener. His late piece “Retire my soul” was of a mournful cast and sung with plaintive, sinuous legato lines. Josquin’s masterpiece of compositional architecture, Salve Regina, with two borrowed parts to thread between original  lines, was performed with seamless interweaving of its contrapuntal entrances. As for Palestrina, his Laudate Dominum couldn’t be done on the choir’s last visit to St. Mary’s, as baritone Gareth Thomas was too ill to perform, and the piece’s twelve-part divisi would not permit it. For an encore, they performed it here, and the rendition proved well worth the wait.

 

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Criticism

Estonians Play Their Pärt

Estonian Festival Orchestra, Credit Fadi Kheir
Carnegie Hall’s Arvo Pärt festival began with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, violin soloists Midori and Hans Christian Aavik and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. (Photo credit Fadi Kheir)

In listening to a three-hour concert of music by Arvo Pärt, the brilliance of the Estonian composer’s craft becomes clear. His use of percussion is a masterclass in orchestration, announcing the beginning of a piece with a chime, punctuating string passages with a ding or a gong, and clamorous timpani rolls in rare fortissimo moments.

This all-Pärt concert on October 23 was the first program in a season-long celebration of the 90-year old composer at Carnegie Hall. Pärt holds the Composer’s Chair at Carnegie this season (that’s the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair, to you). The occasion was also the American debut of the Estonian Festival Orchestra, founded in 2011 by Paavo Järvi, who conducted this performance.

Much of Pärt’s music is deceptively simple: descending scales, modest melodies repeated over and over, block chords and spare orchestration. He is a master of form as well, building a clear emotional arc in every composition, playing on extreme dynamic markings. This was deftly demonstrated by the Estonians, with pianissimo passages that were barely perceptible and subtle shades of softness, holding thunderous fortes for special moments. Another effective technique is his unabashed use of silence – in such a patient way that there is no compulsion to jump in and fill the void.

Only one work on this program reminded me why I have avoided listening to Pärt’s music for many years. The second movement of Tabula Rasa, one of the longest works on the program, was an exercise in restraint. Slow and repetitious without forward motion, it ultimately was tedious and boring. The way this music stopped time seemed to resonate with many in the audience, just not me. Besides that, the performance, which featured two violin soloists – veteran Midori and young upstart Hans Christian Aavik – was a remarkable and compelling work.

Some of the other works performed this evening surprised me with their varied sounds and compelling forward motion, both melodically and harmonically. This was not how I thought of Pärt’s compositional style.

The last piece on the program, Credo, was by far the most interesting and varied. Interspersing JS Bach’s Prelude No. 1 on solo piano (played by Nico Muhly) between Pärt-ian passages, some bellicose, some tender, was exciting.

The Estonians also brought along the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, who performed Adams Lament with the orchestra before being joined by the Trinity Choir for Credo. The combined choirs showed off their special sound in the encore, Pärt’s Estonian Lullaby.

WQXR-FM broadcast the concert on its Carnegie Hall Live series, and it is available for on demand listening at WQXR.org.

Carnegie Hall’s celebration of Arvo Pärt continues throughout the season. Upcoming events, beginning with tonight’s Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir are listed at this link.

by Gail Wein
Contemporary Classical

Erika Dohi – “Myth of Tomorrow”

Erika Dohi is a pianist, vocalist, composer, and improviser. Her full length recording Myth of Tomorrow is out today, Friday, October 24th, via Switch Hit/Figure Eight. She collaborates with Metropolis Ensemble on several of the album’s songs, including the title track (previewed below). Vocoder plays a big role in her singing, and the instrumental component combines classical instrumentation, fluid synths, and programmed rhythms.

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Reinier van Houdt & Andrew Liles – AMBIDEXTROUS CONSTELLATION


On August 15 of this year, Reinier van Houdt and Andrew Liles released a new album titled Ambidextrous Constellation. With narration by Ash Kilmartin, Ambidextrous Constellation is a radio play that chillingly incorporates “…lists of gun specifications and transcripts of experiences of gunshot victims.” Although this album is entirely the work of European artists working in Rotterdam, it is sure to have an immediate emotional impact on those hearing it in America.

Reinier van Houdt studied piano at the Liszt-Akademie in Budapest and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and is a well-known presence in the contemporary music scene. He has performed premiers by Robert Ashley, Alvin Curran, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, and Charlemagne Palestine, among others, and has collaborated with luminaries such as John Cage, Alvin Lucier and Olivier Messiaen. Andrew Liles is a prolific solo artist, producer, re-mixer and studio engineer, who has been active in recording experimental music since the 1980s.

Ambidextrous Constellation consists of eight short pieces that run between four and seven minutes each. Each track is a mixture of electronic sounds with an overlying narration. The liner notes state that a gun is “A machine without morality or judgment.” and the electronic tones consistently support this. The overall feeling is devoid of any sense of humanity, excepting only the warm voice of narrator Ash Kilmartin.

My World opens the album with a series of electronic whooshes that could be abstract gunshots, followed by series of sinister bass chords. A menacing, matter-of-fact narration follows with no musical tones or singing: “In my world, everything is flat. Nothing moves.” The background sounds are sterile and mechanical with the only human presence being the spoken word. There is the description of a bullet flying towards a head. The electronic sounds now become a series of pulses, siren-like, mysterious and uncertain. We have entered a static world where: “nothing moves, nothing propagates.” My World ends quickly, without any resolution.

Iron Sights follows, and this second track is perhaps the most unsettling piece in the album. It begins with a strong percussive beat and electronic sounds that suggest the rapid firing of a weapon. The narrative description of an automatic rifle follows, deadpan and matter of fact: “L1A1, self-loading. barrel length, 20.4 inches. Rate of fire: 610 up to 775 rounds per minute.” Chilling in its dry, clinical description, the focus of the piece now shifts to the point of view of an automatic assault rifle. “Range 400 Meters. Muzzle velocity 940 Meters per second. Unit cost, 1,300 pounds. Aperture, Iron Sights.” Sustained electronic sounds fill the space between the words, adding to the alien and disconnected feeling.

Finally, a single tone is heard with fragments of unintelligible words that slowly fade into silence. The juxtaposition of cold, alien electronic background tones with the straightforward recitation of the assault rifle specifications make Iron Sights a powerful commentary on our fascination with such deadly weaponry.

Other tracks follow with a similar structure and pattern. The descriptions of the weapons get ever more intimidating. Body, Gas Operated, track 3, opens with mysterious bell tones and low rumbling sounds followed by faint, rapid gunfire in the distance accompanied by a rapid snare drumming. The narration begins “… 45 mm NATO cartridge. Barrel length 11 to 20 inches. Gas operated, short stroke piston, rotating bolt. 850 rounds per minute. Effective firing range: 300 meters.” 1984 To Present, track 5, begins with the sharp noise of static below a strong and rapid tom-tom beat. “Barrel length, 20 inches. Rate of fire: 700 to 950 rounds per minute. Muzzle velocity 945 Meters per second. Effective firing range 550 Meters…” Blackout Detachable, track 6, features the sound of a distant siren as the narration states: “AAC Blackout 300. Barrel length 35.7 inches. Unit cost $2233. Muzzle velocity 940 Meters per second. Rate of fire 800 to 900 rounds per minute. Effective firing range 503 Meters.” The listener feels as if buried under these vast and deadly descriptions of firepower.

Two of the pieces do, however, contain a human perspective. Trapped In A Constellation, the title track, starts with loud and harsh scratchy sounds, followed by lovely bell tones and electronic harmonies. The narration switches to a human point of view: “The habit that binds me to my limbs is suddenly gone – space extends.“ A background of beeps and bloops is heard, combined with ‘spacey’ electronic sounds. “I’ve become infinitely small and fall in all directions… Impossible to escape… I’m trapped in a constellation.” The listener is left with the distinct impression that this is a portrayal of instant death by gunshot.

Someone Else, the final track, is even more graphic. Electronic, alien sounds open this track, providing a remote and distant feel. The narration begins: “Silence. I don’t hear anything… [the bullet] entered my body almost quietly… Must have been very sharp and smooth. After an initial sting, I could feel my muscles contracting. I feel I should not move and stay very still. How do you breathe? I thought the bullet would quietly exit my body… “ Now the solemn electronic tones of a pipe organ are heard – distinctly spiritual. More narration: “Of course I moved eventually and then the real pain started. A dazzling pain that strikes your depths, my cells spitting out its electric suffering.” The music turns darker, with cold, spacey beeps creeping into the warmer pipe organ texture. The organ tones gradually diminish, replaced by distant electronic sounds at the quiet finish. A very moving final track to this very powerful album.

Ambidextrous Constellation is a compelling portrait of the unforgiving existence of the modern assault rifle. The emotional power of this album is all the greater because of the straightforward simplicity of its musical materials and a direct narrative approach. Ambidextrous Constellation is precisely the sort of artistry we need in a society besotted by a fascination with violence, guns and death.

Ambidextrous Constellation is available for digital download at Bandcamp.

by Paul Muller
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Piano, Review

Georg Friedrich Haas’ 11,000 Strings At Park Avenue Armory

11,000 Strings at Park Ave Armory
“11,000 Strings” by Georg Friedrich Haas at Park Ave Armory in NYC (credit: Stephanie Berger)

At first glance, it seems like a stunt: 50 pianos and pianists, plus 25 other instrumentalists, all arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the vast Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. They were there to perform 11,000 Strings, a 66 minute composition by Georg Friedrich Haas, commissioned and performed by the Austrian new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. Performances began September 30 and run through October 7, 2025 (I attended on October 2).

At the onset, I was ready to condemn this work as B.S., a party trick, but it’s definitely more than that. Each of the 50 pianos were tuned differently from one another, in 50 steps of microtones. The carefully constructed piece began quietly, on a major chord. One would think it would be difficult to create dynamics any softer than forte, but this performance exhibited a great range of dynamic and timbral nuances.

Almost from the start I recognized that this was a visceral experience for me, similar to the way out-of-tune chords can sometimes invoke a queasy feeling. But this was not nausea. Instead, it was a pleasant vibration deep in my chest, bringing a sense of anticipation and occasionally excitement.

The overall aural effect was cinematic and evoked visual images like a swarm of cicadas, the spookiness of a horror film, mysterious anticipation and thunderous cacophony. As the piece wore on, I caught a glimpse of the digital readout in front of one of the pianists: 21:38. I was discouraged to realize that it indicated 21 minutes elapsed, therefore 45 more to go. At that moment, I was ready for a coda, a fermata and a big finish.

The fact that the Armory could create so much buzz around this avant-garde novelty piece and attract thousands to come experience it is impressive. It does seem like a lot of effort for an hour of music. You won’t leave the venue humming a tune, that’s for sure. But the molecules in your body may be permanently rearranged.

by Gail Wein
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, Recording review

Ken Ueno sings Sonic Calligraphies in the Tank (Recording review)

Ken Ueno – Sonic Calligraphies (Off-record)

Composer and vocalist Ken Ueno is a creator and performer of notated composition, sound art, and improvisation. A professor at UC Berkeley, Ueno’s singing  involves extended techniques, with an investigation of throat-singing styles from many traditions being just one facet of them. His explorations have also often included using a megaphone. 

The megaphone is not often thought of in musical contexts, but rather as an amplifier of spoken voices, often strident in demeanor and used for warning of danger, imposition of power, and inducing fear. Ueno’s employment of it in previous contexts turned these aims on their heads, serving as commentary on political subterfuge and decolonization. His latest work for voice and megaphone, Sonic Calligraphies, does this too, but in a more abstract fashion. In order to obtain certain frequencies, he modifies vowels to create expressive, but not directly linguistic, inflections. 

Another partner in this endeavor is the recording venue, The Tank, a disused, large metal cistern in Rangely, Colorado. Converted from water container to performance venue, it has a one second delay and is extremely resonant. The inception of its use for performance was the iconic 1989 LP Deep Listening, made by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, and Panaiotis. Oliveros later repurposed the recording’s title as a manifesto for her discipline of sound studies. Like this trio, Ueno employs the resonance of the tank, exploring its high ceiling and spacious interior with detailed attention. His sonic palette is a panoply of overtones, microtones, multiphonics, and glissandos. They are deployed in everything from gentle forays to dramatic sonic maelstroms. 

 

Facilitating this endeavor with a megaphone which, above all, is about messaging and overt declamation, makes its abstraction a virtue. The recording is a poetic rejoinder to the amplified discourse so often found today, emanating from the political talking heads on cable news, doom scrolls of social media, and animated disagreements in public and around the dinner table. Sonic Calligraphies may elude precise translation. However, it is eloquent and engaging in equal measure. 

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Orchestral

Peter Thoegersen – Symphony IV: melodiae perpetuae



Peter Thoegersen has posted a digital realization of his Symphony IV: melodiae perpetuae on Bandcamp. This is an ambitious piece for full orchestra with a running time of just over 52 minutes. Symphony IV is a work in progress; it is intended to be poly microtonal and poly tempic in its ultimate form. The recording posted at this writing is realized in 12TET tuning with various sections of the orchestra heard in different tempi simultaneously. Thoegersen writes: “Each choir of the orchestra is moving separately in Fuxian contrapuntal motions, such as contrary, parallel, similar, and oblique, with respect to tempi changes in the choirs.” Fragments of Gregorian chant from the Liber Usualis form the foundation for the various sections as they ebb and flow throughout this single movement piece. Updates to Symphony IV will be posted on Bandcamp as software improvements and other refinements are implemented.

Peter Thoegersen has devoted much of his career to the exploration of multiple simultaneous tempi that intersect with scales and harmony constructed from micro tonal pitches. He has produced a number of works realized digitally as well as several performed pieces. These have been mostly for smaller and mid-sized ensembles, so the application of Thoegersen’s methodology to full symphonic forces represents a significant escalation of his artistic intentions. Symphony IV, even in its present unfinished form, gives an insight into this process.

In a conventional 19th century symphony, there is typically a sonata structure so that the various sections of the orchestra pass around a common theme and introduce variations. Symphony IV is nothing like this. From the very beginning we are immersed in a great wash of sounds and all the parts of the orchestra seem to be playing at once. This might seem to be a recipe for sonic chaos, but it proves to be more engaging than distracting. Different sections of the orchestra are often heard crossing through each other, and this creates an intriguing kaleidoscope of textures that are continuously unfolding as the piece progresses. At times the great wash of sound might remind of a piece like Becoming Ocean, by John Luther Adams. As the sections intersect and collide, snatches of what could be passages from David Diamond’s Symphony I or Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra might be heard.

The overall feeling in this music changes quickly and can vary from mysterious, to ominous, haunting, grand or tense. The Gregorian chant fragments embedded in this piece provide a solid foundational gravitas throughout. Often a single section, usually the brass or percussion, will rise to the top of the texture and dominate briefly. The strings provide a restrained background against which the other sections can emerge and contrast. A piano line of single notes will occasionally rise up over the woodwinds to trigger the memory of a piano concerto. The dynamics rise and fall, often depending on which section is dominating. The timpani often heralds a tutti crescendo that ends with a bold trumpet call. It is perhaps the employment of full orchestral forces that allow the listener to pick out favorite or familiar-sounding phrases. But these come in the absence of a conventional structure and so are enjoyed without any framing context. This uncertainty increases the engagement of the listener.

How far into the unorthodox will Symphony IV ultimately travel? Only time will tell, but the journey will doubtless be full of surprises and worth following.

by Paul Muller
Canada, Chamber Music, Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Strings

Nine Premiere Performances by Kati Agócs at Banff International String Quartet Competition

Composer Kati Agocs (photo courtesy Visconti Arts)

It’s rare for a new work to have even a second performance, but Kati Agócs’ Rapprochement received nine plays in a single day. Agócs was commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition to write a composition that each quartet would be required to play in the 2025 competition.

The title of her nine-minute piece means “to bring together.” Agócs, in a pre-performance conversation with BISQC director Barry Shiffman, explained that it is in variation form, in which the harmonic underpinning is important to the melodic line. It’s a lyrical piece, and the instructions call for a lot of fluidity with beautiful solos for each member of the quartet. In an introductory video, she said, “The score leaves room for players to shape nuances of dynamics, articulation, balances, and color.” Agócs worked individually with the competing quartets as they learned the piece.

Quatuor Elmire (Photo by Rita Taylor, courtesy of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)

There were nine quartets participating in 2025 BISQC: Viatores Quartet (from Berlin), Arete Quartet (Seoul), Cong Quartet (Hong Kong), Quatour Magenta (Paris), Quatour Elmire (Paris), Quartett HANA (Munich), Nerida Quartet (Bremen), Quartet KAIRI (Salzburg), and Poiesis Quartet (Cincinnati). Naturally, each gave its own spin on the work. This was a great opportunity for the audience to hear the ensembles back-to-back-to-back. Over the previous four days, the quartets performed one round of works from the romantic era and one round of a quartet by Franz Josef Haydn paired with a 21st century work. You can watch all of the performances on demand on the BISQC website.

I asked Shiffman why he chose to program all of the premiere performances of Agócs’ piece in a single concert. He said, “Look at the audience. It is the most popular concert of the competition.” He said that most of the audience are not avid new music listeners, and it’s helpful to them to hear many interpretations at the same time.

The Arete Quartet pulsated the rhythms as if inhaling and exhaling. Cong gave special attention to a steady eighth note all through the piece, which was one of the instructions in the score. Magenta leaned into the dissonances at the opening, and gave the rhythms a jaunty swing. Elmire made the most of the hemiola rhythms near the beginning and gave the jolly rhythms a sensual twist, ending with panache.

HANA did a great job of “singing” lyrically (another instruction in the score). Nerida gave the ethereal opening an especially mystical feel and their upward glissandos were especially gossamer. KAIRI seemed to have an especially good handle on the transitions between sections, and Poiesis showed a confidence above the others. They were especially birdlike in the chirps that came just before upward glissandos, and did a great job of varying the sound of each iteration of the theme.

Agócs, who is Canadian-American-Hungarian, teaches at New England Conservatory in Boston. She has written two other quartets, Tantric Variations for Cecilia Quartet and Imprimatur for Jupiter Quartet, both previous BISQC winners.

The first Banff International String Quartet Competition was in 1983 and it’s been held every three years since then. It takes place at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity which is in Banff National Park, a breathtakingly beautiful location in the Canadian Rockies. The winner of the 2025 competition will be announced on August 31.

by Gail Wein
Contemporary Classical

BBC Proms–Boulez Thorvaldsdottir Hisaishi Reich Gubaidulina

The Prom on August 4 was presented by BBC Symphony Orchestra, along with the BBC Symphony Chorus and the Constanza Chorus, conducted by Hannu Tintu. It opened with Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna by Pierre Boulez, in commemoration of the centennial of Boulez’s birth. Written later in his life, when Boulez’s conducting career seemed to limit his compositional activity, Rituel is an austere ceremonial progression of textures and instrumental colors, lasting approximately half an hour. Both its structural strategy and its expressive effect are somewhat reminiscent of Stravinky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments. It was given a very effective performance with the appropriate concentration and seriousness. The other work on the program, Mahler’s Das Klangende Lied is a rather remarkable piece. Written when he was twenty, Mahler considered it to be the moment in which he found himself as a composer. It is remarkable both for the very great talent it demonstrates and for how really terrible it is as a whole piece. Both Brahms and Liszt, as heads of two different juries considering the work for performance, rejected it; they were both right.

The Prom concert on August 13, presented by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eva Ollikainen, featured Before We Fall, a ‘cello concerto by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, with the very wonderful Johannes Moser soloist, surrounded by early twentieth century masterworks, Varese Intégrale, Ravel Bolero, and Stravinsky The Rite of Spring. The most remarkable thing about the Thorvaldsdottir concerto is its instrumental writing and orchestration. The ‘cello is several times put in registral situations with surrounding instrumentation which it would seem should completely bury it, but the soloist is always audible. There is also a remarkable use throughout the work of octave doublings. Everything is in the service of what the composer, in her note about the piece, says is the most important expressive concept of the work: “…the notion of teetering on the edge–of balancing on the verge of a multitude of opposites.” Before We Fall is a very compelling and beautiful work, although it could have used more of the fine sense of timing and pacing demonstrated by the Ravel and Stravinsky pieces on the concert.

Joe Hisaishi conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by the BBC Singers, the National Youth Voices, and the Philharmonia Chorus for the Prom on August 14. The program consisted of two pieces of his, The Symphonic Suite The Boy and the Heron, in which Hisaishi was also the piano soloist, and The End of the World, both receiving their European premiere, and The Desert Music by Steve Reich. One is immediately struck on hearing Hisaishi’s music by the command of the sonorities and colors of the instrumental writing, and the immediate appeal of the musical ideas. The argument of the music is not always as continually engaging in The Boy and the Heron, despite its many pleasing qualities, possibly because it was written as music for the film of the same name by Hayao Miyazaki. The End of the World is a more independent statement, beginning initially with Hisaishi’s reaction to visiting the site in New York of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The work developed over several versions, increasingly concerned with the anxiety and chaos of the original attack and further with values of the aftermath of the event. The work concludes with Hisaishi’s effective recomposed version of the song The End of the World, recorded in the 1960s by Skeeter Davis. Although the program credited the lyrics of the song, which are by Sylvia Dee, it made no mention of the person who wrote the tune, Arthur Kent. The singing of countertenor John Holiday, the soloist in the work, was particularly beautiful and expressive. The concert concluded with The Desert Music by Steve Reich. A protest and warning against nuclear weaponry, the work, which was written between 1982 and 1984, practices the compositional procedures Reich developed leading up to Tehillim. Its workings and musical language were undoubtedly a precedent for Hisaishi’s compositional methods and style, so it was a very fitting companion on the program.

The Prom concert on August 15 was presented by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, joined by the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and Synergy Vocals, conducted by Ryan Bancroft. The advertisement for the concert featured The Ravel G major Piano Concerto, with Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist, and that piece, very masterfully performed, and followed by a barn burning performance of the third movement of the Prokofiev Seventh Piano Sonata as an encore, ended the first half of the concert. It began with a performance of Revue Music by Sofia Gubaidulina. Written when Gubaidulina was very much out of favor with the government of the Soviet Union, where she lived at the time, and when she was very desperate for work and for any means of financial survival, the work was initially conceived of as a sort of concerto grosso for jazz band, including electric guitars and vocals, and orchestra. The “jazz” it evokes is actually more the music of American sixties television music (the program note suggested Lalo Schifrin, particularly his theme for Mission: Impossible), filtered through Russian early twentieth century style and procedures. The result was both interesting and enjoyable.

The final work on the concert Dimitri Shostakovich’s Thirteen Symphony, Babi Yar, setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Since it is concerned with governmental oppression of a class of its citizens deemed unworthy and inferior, in the case of the work’s subject, Jews, and since its history is involved with governmental suppression of artists and works of artists which do not conform with the government’s agenda, the work seemed unsettlingly timely. Bass Baritone Kostas Smoriginas joined the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales in a powerful performance of the work.


by Rodney Lister