Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No. 4, ‘The Jungle’ – programme note (LSO)
New York City: ‘the most fluid, pressure-packed and cosmopolitan metropolis the modern world has ever seen’, according to Wynton Marsalis. And he should know, having lived there on and off since 1979, when he arrived from New Orleans to study at the Juilliard School. Tapping into this near-40-year relationship, in 2016 the New York Philharmonic commissioned Marsalis to write a work on ‘New York-inspired themes’ for its 175th-anniversary season. The result, a sprawling, 65-minute symphony subtitled ‘The Jungle’, pays loving homage to the city, capturing its melting-pot culture and frenetic energy across six movements.
Five Reasons to love Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin (LSO)
Boulez: Chamber Music – various programme notes (LSO)
For much of his life Pierre Boulez was preoccupied by the idea of a work being continually ‘in progress’. So many of his compositions exist in multiple versions that those which don’t – his early masterpiece Le marteau sans maître (1953–5), for example – are the exceptions that prove the rule. And while Messagesquisse (1976), which opens tonight’s concert, is one of those exceptions, it also represents the first link in a chain of pieces that stretches over several decades.
Olga Neuwirth: Tombeau II – Hommage à Pierre Boulez – programme note (LSO)
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Sco – programme note (LSO)
Sitting at the heart of tonight’s world premiere are two figures of huge importance to Mark-Anthony Turnage. The first, Sir Simon Rattle, for whose 70th birthday Sco was commissioned, is one of the composer’s longest-standing champions. The second is tonight’s soloist, the man who gives Sco its name, John Scofield …
Helmut Lachenmann: My Melodies – programme note and profile (LSO)
‘Everyone will be waiting for a melody, and I will of course disappoint them all!’, Helmut Lachenmann said with a grin at the 2018 premiere of My Melodies. Indeed, this mammoth piece contains scant melody in the traditional sense. Pithy cells – scraps of fragments of melody – pepper the orchestral texture, cavorting and twisting in a multi layered dialogue. Stray patterns bump up alongside toneless whispers and scrapes. But a full-blooded, tubthumping tune? No chance.
Anna Clyne: This Midnight Hour – programme note and profile (LSO)
As with so many of Anna Clyne’s orchestral works, This Midnight Hour takes inspiration from nonmusical sources, in this case two poems. The first is Charles Baudelaire’s much-anthologised ‘Harmonie du soir’ (Evening Harmony) from the 1857 collection Les fleurs du mal. Stuffed with sensory observations and evocative similes – floral scent, tortured violins, a drowning, blood-clotted sun – the poem comprises a series of woozy repetitions that fold in on themselves like a hall of mirrors …
Ondřej Adámek: Follow Me – programme note and profile (LSO)
The ‘narrative concerto’ has its roots in the early 19th century. Think Harold in Italy, Hector Berlioz’s ‘symphony with viola obbligato’, or Carl Maria von Weber’s Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, both of which cast the soloist as protagonist in a musical drama. In Follow Me, Ondřej Adámek takes this idea and adds a macabre twist …
Eric Whitacre: Eternity in an Hour – programme note (BBC Proms)
Artist, mystic and political radical William Blake is today considered one of the major cultural figures of the Romantic Age. And, although he was virtually unknown as a poet during his lifetime, Auguries of Innocence has become one of his best-loved works. Rich with symbolist imagery and social criticism, the poem meditates on the interconnectedness of all living things, the inherent goodness in nature and the fragility of human innocence …
Q&A with Sam Smith (BBC Proms)
When the Saints Go Marching In – Louis Armstrong put his stamp on a tune with a rich history (Financial Times)
Wynton Marsalis: Trumpet Concerto – programme note and profile (LSO)
Donghoon Shin: Nachtergebung – programme note and profile (LSO)
Live and Let Die — Paul McCartney’s song helped take Bond into a new era (Financial Times)
Abel Selaocoe: Four Spirits – Programme note and profile (LSO)
Fazil Say: Violin Concerto – Programme Note and Profile (LSO)
Betsy Jolas: Ces belles années... – programme note and profile (LSO)
Magnus Lindberg: Piano Concerto No. 3 – programme note (LSO)
Concertos often owe their origins to the inspiration of a great performer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was so impressed with the pioneering clarinettist Anton Stadler that he wrote a concerto – along with several other works – especially for him. A close friendship with Mstislav Rostropovich spurred both of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concertos …
