Fortissimo Spring 2018

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Colin Matthews Selected forthcoming performances Hidden Agenda World premiere of complete version 4.5.18, Winchester Chamber Music Festival, Winchester Discovery Centre, Winchester, UK: London Bridge Trio Meditation 17.5.18, St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, United Kingdom: Tabea Debus Grand Barcarolle 26.5.18, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: Morley Chamber Orchestra/Charles Peebles Turning Point Japanese premiere 26.6.18, Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo, Japan: NHK Symphony Orchestra/ Stefan Asbury Pluto, the renewer 6.7.18, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: Chethams Symphony Orchestra/ Jac van Steen As Time Returns London premiere 7.12.18, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London, UK: London Sinfonietta Arrangements Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen South Korean premiere 6.3.18, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea: Ian Bostridge/Members of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra Debussy – Preludes Le vent dans la plaine, La puerta del vino, Les collines d’Anacapri 15-16.3.18, Kongresshaus, Innsbruck, Austria: Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck/Jac van Steen La Cathédrale engloutie 24.3.18, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla Général Lavine - eccentric/Minstrels 25.3.18, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla Voiles 4-6.5.18, Parco della Musica, S. Grande, Rome, Italy: Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla Ravel – ‘Oiseaux tristes’ from Miroirs 26,28.4.18, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon Colin Matthews ‘Turning Point’ in Tokyo In July Colin Matthews’s Turning Point receives its Japanese premiere from the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Stefan Asbury. Commissioned in 2006 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, this 25-minute journey from complex momentum to expressive simplicity displays all the ingenious craft we have come to expect from Matthews, together with a startling emotional directness. Out of a whirring, motoric scherzo comes a jolting sea change: an austere, glacial string chorale of searing intensity that, with gritty resilience, gradually comes to overwhelm everything else. Two works for the London Sinfonietta Works for solo alto flute are a rarity, and Matthews’s Bell-wether, a commission from the London Sinfonietta in memory of their ex-flautist Sebastian Bell, is rarer still in that it mostly eschews the more languorous side of the instruments character in favour of its hidden, mercurial qualities. The three-minute work was premiered as part of the Sinfonietta’s 50th anniversary celebrations in January. The Sinfonietta will premiere a new song cycle for baritone and chamber ensemble, a setting of poems by exiled Czech poet Ivan Blatný, in December. Debussy 100 As the Hallé Orchestra’s Composer in Association, Matthews spent five years making orchestral versions of all 24 of Debussy’s Preludes for piano – a remarkable achievement. In this, the 100th anniversary of Debussy’s death, the Preludes will receive performances across the world. Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla has programmed a selection in Rome and Birmingham, the BBC Philharmonic performed a number with Ben Gernon in late February, and in March Jac van Steen conducts three with the Tiroler Symphonieorchester in Innsbruck. Matthews has just completed an orchestration of the first book of Debussy’s Images, which will be recorded for the Pentatone label by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg in July. Composer of the Week As part of BBC Radio 3’s New Year, New Music season, which this year sought to make connections between contemporary pieces and music of the past, Matthews was featured as Composer of the Week at the beginning of January, visiting the studio to discuss his work in person. From its links to Britten, to influences as wide-ranging as Mahler and Minimalism, Matthews’s music is a fascinating case study in how the music of today can enjoy a rich and fruitful dialogue with the past. Each programme focussed on a particular influence, and the week also included orchestrations of music by Britten and Debussy. ‘Hidden Agenda’ Following the premiere of his second piano trio Hidden Agenda by the London Bridge Trio last year, Matthews has now extended it to create a three-movement work of 11 minutes duration. The Trio will give the premiere of the completed work in May at the Winchester Chamber Music Festival. Nicholas Maw Revisiting ‘Dance Scenes’ An exuberant and vigorous set of four orchestral dances, Nicholas Maw’s Dance Scenes (1995) might almost be called a concerto for orchestra in the way it imaginatively puts each group of instruments through their paces. Maw’s debt to his English forebears are clearly signposted in this kaleidoscopic 19-minute work – the brassy extravagance of the first dance sounds like Walton and the tangy woodwind writing later like Britten – and the whole is breathtakingly scored, filled with a profusion of scintillating invention. Premiered by Daniel Harding and the Philharmonia Orchestra, but not performed since 2004, this colourful work – showing Maw at his most generous and upbeat – is ripe for a reappraisal. 8 PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL; NICHOLAS MAW © MAURICE FOXALL
TUNING IN Anders Hillborg The orchestra as sound animal In March Anders Hillborg’s Beast Sampler received its French premiere with Leonard Slatkin conducting the Orchestre National de Lyon. The title of this dazzling 11-minute work refers to Hillborg’s frequent characterization of the orchestra as a ‘sound animal’ – where individual instrumental identities dissolve into one huge sound organism – and the influence of electronic music processes on his work with acoustic instruments. It is an ideal introduction to Hillborg’s language, taking in everything from Xenakis, Ligeti, hints of jazz and orchestrated ‘rewind’ effects, in a myriad of remarkably well-heard textures, built up of glistening sheets of sound. ‘I wanted to focus just as much on sound and noise as on pitch and harmony,’ writes Hillborg before explaining that the work also draws on a number of ‘(sound-)beast samples’ from earlier pieces. A singing, whistling, take on Bach Following performances of Bach Materia in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany, and a nine-performance US tour with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pekka Kuusisto continues to travel the world with this inventive piece for violin and strings. Commissioned by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra as a companion to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, and tailor-made for Kuusisto’s extraordinary range of abilities, including improvisation, the 14-minute piece receives its Norwegian premiere in April. ‘A voice entirely his own… a fascinating patchwork of baroque and contemporary soundworlds… Every performance will be different but there are touchstones that will remain constant, like the surprise opening, in which the strings seem to be tuning before pulling order unexpectedly from chaos… There’s a lot of jazz, reminiscent of West Side Story at its most tense and urgent… There’s twittering birdsong, Kuusisto singing and whistling, violas played with drumsticks, and a slow movement full of sadness. A very exciting work.’ Pioneer Press (Rob Hubbard), 10 November 2017 A prize for Violin Concerto No. 2 In 2017, Hillborg’s Violin Concerto No. 2 saw performances in Helsinki, London, Minneapolis and Seoul. Described as music of ‘directly speaking, timeless beauty’ at its 2016 premiere with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the concerto was composed for Lisa Batiashvili and has also been championed by James Ehnes and Viviane Hagner. The powerful 24-minute work, which alternates between melancholy, almost glacial, calm and driving passages of extraordinary muscle and bite, won Hillborg a Musikförläggarnas Pris at the 2017 Swedish Music Publishers Awards. A broadcast of the Finnish premiere of the concerto in November, featuring Batiashvili and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, can be viewed online at arte.tv. ‘A work of rare mystery and beauty. Moments of intense lyricism, suggesting eternity, alternate with vigorous, lusty, up-tempo, rock-influenced passages — mind vs. body.’ StarTribune (Michael Anthony), 15 September 2017 ‘the most absorbing of journeys’ ‘Captivating… both calming and disquieting, rippling with conflict, contrasting moods layered one atop another… it was among the most exciting new violin concertos I’ve encountered in recent years… the most absorbing of journeys, one both troubling and transcendent, often within a single phrase… I found Hillborg’s unpredictable flow fascinating.’ Twin Cities (Rob Hubbard), 14 September 2017 ‘Was it going to be generic contemporary? The skeetering strings at the beginning suggested as much. But their headlong collision with a chorus of sustained chords proved arresting: what sounded like a pre-recorded ambience turned out to be those same strings turned to calm seas. In effect much of the concerto was searing cadenza from the compellingly intense Batiashvili, punctuated by two wild eastern dances – part Turkish sanat, part Bollywood, with Hillborg making and needing no apologies for the populism. The intensity held; the ear was led through ever-unexpected harmonic shifts. Filmic in effect, but never merely film music.’ The Artsdesk (David Nice), 30 November 2017 Two new works for the LPO Hillborg’s orchestral homage to Stravinsky, Mantra – Elegy, will be premiered by Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in April, with a US premiere at the Aspen Festival in July. A second work for the LPO, a Concerto for Orchestra, will be premiered in January 2019 with Marin Alsop conducting. Anders Hillborg Selected forthcoming performances Peacock Tales 5.4.18, Great Guild Hall, Riga. Latvia: Latvian National Symphony Orchestra/Karlis Kundrats (original version) 26.4.18, NDR Grosser Sendesaal, Hannover; 27.4.18, Theater Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany: Martin Fröst/ NDR Radiophilharmonie/Andrew Manze (Millennium version) Bach Materia Norwegian premiere 8.4.18, Aula, Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo, Norway: Pekka Kuusisto/Det Norske Kammerorkester Six Pieces for Wind Quintet 14.4.18, Syracuse, NY; 20.5.18, Bunker Hill Presbyterian Church, Sewell, NJ, USA: Imani Winds Brass Quintet 18.4.18, Independent Theatre, Sydney, NSW; 4.9.18, Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Australian Brass Quintet Mantra – Elegy World premiere 21.4.18, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Vladimir Jurowski US premiere 22.7.18, Benedict Music Tent, Aspen, CO, USA: Aspen Festival Orchestra/ Christian Arming Concerto for Orchestra World premiere 16.1.19, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Marin Alsop PHOTO: ANDERS HILLBORG © J-O WEDIN 9
Page 1 and 2: FABER MUSIC NEWS — SPRING 2018 fo
Page 3 and 4: HIGHLIGHTS ‘I first met Donald in
Page 5 and 6: HIGHLIGHTS Tansy Davies Selected fo
Page 7: HIGHLIGHTS Julian Anderson celebrat
Page 11 and 12: TUNING IN ‘Written on Skin’ in
Page 13 and 14: TUNING IN David Matthews ‘New Fir
Page 15 and 16: TUNING IN Tom Coult Études feature
Page 17 and 18: TUNING IN Carl Davis Bintley’s
Page 19 and 20: TUNING IN Carl Vine Melbourne resid
Page 21 and 22: TUNING IN Jonathan Harvey ‘Speaki
Page 23 and 24: NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS Ins
Page 25 and 26: A Concerto for Comedian and Orchest
Page 27 and 28: Bärenreiter focus: the music of Mi

Fortissimo Spring 2018

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