September is here – back to school after the summer holidays – the season begins in the music world as well. The concert halls and opera houses of London re-open, to take us through a cornucopia of music until next summer...
September is here – back to school and time for the new music season to begin. The concert halls and opera houses of London re-open, to take us through a cornucopia of music until next summer. Yet amazingly that extraordinary festival – the Proms, at the Albert Hall – is still going strong for another ten days with the participation of great orchestras from Israel, Budapest, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, not to mention one of the great orchestras of the world, the London Symphony Orchestra, under the veteran Sir Colin Davis, playing one of the great masterpieces of classical music, Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis' (Solemn Mass), after almost two centuries since its first performance, still a tremendous challenge for performers and listeners alike – an existential affirmation of both Christian meaning and terrifying doubt about it all, particularly at the very end of the piece. Then I wouldn't miss a performance of the archetypal German romantic opera, 'Der Freischütz' (The Freeshooter) by Carl Maria von Weber, full of the most wonderful melodies, but here in a rarely performed French version by Hector Berlioz, the archetypal French romantic composer. Conducted by Sir John Elliot Gardiner, and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, this should be an outstanding occasion. And then the following day, the famous Last Night, but this year, not without its real musical interest, including the appearance of the amazing Chinese Liberace of classical piano playing, Lang Lang, whose glittering suit will certainly be quite something to observe either at the Albert Hall, or on the TV. I remember a year or so ago, him playing from memory with Colin Davis, Michael Tippett's obscure but beautiful Piano Concerto of 1955. I was really amazed and impressed.
Concert Highlights: John Cage Night, Morton Feldman and Pierre Boulez
The end of the Proms glides easily into the concert and opera season. The Wigmore Hall is dominated by five concerts by really outstanding German male singers: Thomas Quasthoff, Michael Schade and Christian Gerhaher, the latter singing all three great song cycles of Schubert. He cancelled his last concert a few months ago, but he is an astonishing singer, one who will surely become a legend, and of course, what he is performing, including 'The Beautiful Miller's Daughter', 'Winter's Journey' and 'Swan Songs', are all unforgettable masterpieces of songwriting. Over at King's Place, which is behind King's Cross Station, I recommend strongly two concerts taking place on September 8, one at 8.30pm, the other at 9.45pm, devoted to two composers of the greatest contemporary distinction; Julian Anderson, one of Britain's leading young composers, now in the process of composing an opera for ENO, based on the Theben plays of Sophocles. His music, of great individual melody and colour, influenced to some extent by East European and Indian folk music, is very compelling. The same night, there is a concert devoted to the great American centenarian Composer, Elliot Carter – still actively composing, uncompromisingly modernist and disciplined, but nonetheless extraordinary listening. Then on Tuesday September 13, there is a John Cage night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's Southbank, not to be missed, including naturally '4.33' which was 'written' originally, or rather first performed in 1952. Listening to it in all its legendary silence, you will never be more aware of sound. Cage, one of the great philosophers, but also practitioners of music, was an unbelievably influential figure in the American art and music worlds, whose influence is still being felt. An artist such as the now popular Christian Marclay, whose 'The Clock' has been one of the most successful contemporary artworks of recent years, is unthinkable without Cage. And on September 21 there is a concert, also at the QEH, dominated by the music of Morton Feldman, another original modernist, also much associated with New York art, particularly the Abstract Expressionists, including Jackson Pollock, Rothko and Philip Guston. If you want to know about the musical equivalents of these painters, both the above concerts are for you. And then to top it all, starting on September 30 there will be a fantastic weekend devoted to the exquisitely calculated music of the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who is now well into his eighties. Boulez is indeed the living treasure of French music, and heir to a tradition that stretches back to Berlioz, who too was a great conductor in his time. Catch this master now!
Opera Highlights: The Passenger, Il Trittico and South Pacific
Above all, there will be the first performances in this country, at the English National Opera at the London Coliseum, of an opera called 'The Passenger' by the Jewish Polish-Russian composer, Mieczyslav Weinberg, 1919-86, friend of Shostakovich, which tells the story of an Auschwitz guard and an Auschwitz victim meeting on a ship bound for South America just after the Second World War. I have never heard the piece, and very little of the composer's music, though he was very prolific, writing many operas, symphonies, string quartets etc, but what little I have heard makes me want to hear much more. Those who saw 'The Passenger' when it was first performed quite recently in Austria, produced by the English opera producer David Poutney, pronounced it a genuine eclectic masterpiece, that mixes 20th century musical styles to serious cathartic effect. At the Royal Opera House up the road, the big event of the month is a new production of Puccini's 'Il Trittico' (The Tryptic) that consists of three one-act operas – the first, a melodramatic story about a murder on a barge in Paris, the second, about a girl of a wealthy family, forced into a nunnery for having mothered an illegitimate child, the third, 'Gianni Schicchi', a comic masterpiece by the composer, that tells the story of an avaricious extended family, waiting for their inheritance, only to be deprived of it by a masterly trickster. It contains the wonderful melody that everyone will recognise, 'Oh my beloved daddy!' And Richard Jones the director should make all the operas memorable to watch – Tony Pappano, the best conductor of Puccini around today. Other operas, which will be less expensive to go to (but then I always say, even Covent Garden at its most expensive, is cheaper than most football matches) are two operas being given by the British Youth Opera from September 3-10 at the Peacock Theatre (the Marriage of Figaro, and the Rape of Lucretia, by Benjamin Britten) the latter, a very intense musical period piece originally written in 1946 for Kathleen Ferrier, that deals with both the Rape of Lucretia by the last king of Rome before the Republic, Tarquin, in the context of early Christianity. At the Soho Theatre there is until September 17, a version with reduced orchestral forces, of Don Giovanni, the latter here turned into a city slicker. And finally, at the Barbican there is a production of 'South Pacific', the masterly musical by Rogers and Hammerstein, a production that has been running at Lincoln Center in New York. Who needs Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Norman Rosenthal spent more than thirty years as director of exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts. Since he was nine-years-old, he has been haunting London's many concert and opera venues, large and small, absorbing classical, opera and contemporary music, all of which he enjoys in equal measure.
