Birmingham's annual "Towards The Millennium" Festival celebrates the 1980s
this month. What events recall the decade? Lech Walesa and Solidarity,
John Lennon's assassination, Prince Charles's wedding to Diana Spencer,
E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial, Reaganomics, Thatcherism and the Berlin
Wall's demolition. And what music? As well as Live Aid and hits from
Madonna, Duran Duran and Michael Jackson, there were major works from
Takemitsu, Gubaidulina, Adams and Knussen. I find it a more stimulating
decade for "classical" music than the grey and rebarbative 1970s...
See http://www.birminghamarts.org.uk/80s/index.html for more details of the
Festival.
Some concerts also take place in London's South Bank Centre, like this one
I attended on Saturday:
"Edge of a Dream ... the '80s"
Lutoslawski: Symphony No.3
Takemitsu: To the Edge of Dream; Vers l'arc-en-ciel, Palma
John Adams: Harmonium
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle conductor,
John Williams guitar, Christine Pendrill oboe.
As Matthew Rye wrote in the Telegraph, "Simon Rattle brought together
three composers who, in different ways, reveal the Eighties as the decade
in which harmony and emotion in music began to return after the relatively
dry and hard-edged sounds of the Sixties and Seventies."
I first heard Lutoslawski's aleatoric style last year, when "Les Espaces
Du Sommeil" featured in the 1970s Festival. The 3rd Symphony also had
melodic lines played intentionally out-of-sync, which was like seeing a
curve through a multi-faceted prism. My friends were disturbed by the
CBSO's "poor ensemble", not realising the effect was deliberate. The CBSO
viola section was even more blistering in its major solo passage than the
BPO section in Lutoslawski's Philips recording. The audience smiled at the
work's twists, RatataTat! outbursts and glistening textures.
Takemitsu said of "To the Edge of Dream", "melodic fragments float in a
transparent space like so many splinters of dream." Featherlight guitar
solos counterbalanced a huge orchestra, and as usual with Takemitsu's
music, I submitted easily to the serenity of his music. "Dream" and
"Palma" were inspired by the paintings of Paul Delvaux and Jean Miro
respectively. I couldn't sense the connection, but the gloom of the
South Bank Centre's concrete wastes was banished earlier by a visit to
an exhibition of Patrick Caulfield's equally vivid and colourful canvases
(typical painting: http://www.tate.org.uk/coll/cchtm/t01134_b.htm).
The Rattle/CBSO CD of John Adams' orchestral works (CDC 555051 2) gave me
an inkling of what to expect in "Harmonium," a choral work setting poems by
John Donne and Emily Dickinson. Rattle gave a low-key reading of the poems
before the work, and I settled back to some softly chugging, mildly saucy
minimalism... In fact, this music became so exciting, it nearly pitched me
out of the terrace onto the cellos, scrubbing busily below. I could see
the climaxes' shockwaves of energy radiating from the platform through the
sloping ranks of listeners in the stalls.
Matthew Rye wrote, "the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus reminded us why
it is regarded as one of the finest choirs in the country, with incisive,
full-blooded singing, no more so than in the ecstatic opening of
Dickinson's Wild Nights."
Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile - the Winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!
James Kearney
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