The Metamorphosis of Mons

We’re packed into stands on opposite sides of a vast exhibition hall on the outskirts of Mons, Belgium. There are no windows and it’s all rather dark and gloomy. There are no signs of creativity. In fact, were it not for the guest list I was holding that stated the presence of leading artists, museum directors, choreographers and architects – presumably sitting somewhere in the dark cavernous hall - I could well have wondered if I’d walked into the wrong event.

©OlivierDonnet

Two hours later and my doubts had been totally dispelled. The huge space had been filled with more creativity than I have ever before seen at a press conference. It felt like a mini opening ceremony for London 2012, particularly when an open-top double decker bus full of British quirkiness arrived in the exhibition hall - think the Queen waving from the front of the upper deck, techno music blaring out, umbrellas, Sherlock Holmes, policemen on stilts…! But no, this was not the prelude to the Olympic Games, it was the launch of the cultural programme for Mons as European Capital of Culture next year: Mons 2015.

The launch event included the tricky choreography of several local buses arriving in the hall, each illustrating a different Mons 2015 theme through the words lit up on its destination board and the people and props that emerged from each vehicle. 

One bus was filled with sunflowers and had the words ‘I’m called Vincent. And you?’. Vincent Van Gogh lived for a time in the Mons area and it was there that he decided to become an artist. Cue visits to the house where he lived and an exhibition on the sources of his inspiration. Another bus said ‘I sing for Mons. And you?’ Standing on the roof was a singer dressed as the Renaissance composer Orlando di Lassus, who was born in Mons in the 1500s. One of the related events will be 700 amateur and professional choral singers gathering on the steps of the town’s Sainte-Waudru collegiate church. And as for the British double-decker, it represented London, which will be one of eight global cities featured in La Maison Folie (the Madness House).

In total Mons will organise some 1,000 cultural and artistic activities throughout the year. Many big Belgian names have got involved, including choreographer Frédéric Flamand, who founded the Charleroi Danses company, artist Arne Quinze, renowned for his large outdoor installations, and the designer and illustrator François Schuiten, best known perhaps for his comic strip work.

There will be no shortage of development projects happening in the town, with five new museums opening in Mons and a brand new train station designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava – and set to rival another of his creations, the futuristic train station in another Walloon town, Liège.

In its own words, Mons plans to undergo a metamorphosis. The town wants Mons 2015 to bring about positive change that will last well beyond 2015. As the outgoing Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo explained in his opening speech, Mons has undergone difficult economic times in recent decades with the collapse of the industrial age. Mons 2015 will enable the former coal-mining area to turn the page and start to write a new and prestigious chapter, he said. “Mons 2015 will not be an end in itself; it will be the start of a new era,” said Di Rupo, who is also the official mayor of Mons.

©DavidBormans

So, as the six local buses, which by the close of the launch were all parked at one end of the hall, said on their destination boards:

In 2015

I am from Mons

She is from Mons

He is from Mons 

Everyone is from Mons

And you?

KlaraFestival's 10th birthday party

Last night saw the start of the KlaraFestival's 10th birthday party - and what a way to kick off the two-week celebration! The audience was treated to a modern and contemporary programme played by one of the world's top orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and one of the best known soloists in the classical world, the Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

The organisers promised a festival of fireworks and if the opening concert is anything to go by, then concert goers are not going to be disappointed.

Lang Lang was clearly the main draw of the evening, and it was his performance of Ravel's concerto for piano and orchestra in G that was chosen to round off the Saturday night programme. Jazzy, jaunty, exhilarating and exciting, there can't have been an audience member who didn't leave the hall with a smile on his or her face. It felt about as far from the clichéd image of a stuffy classical concert as you can get.

And in a way that's what the KlaraFestival is about. It's a festival that prides itself on original performances of classical, romantic, modern and contemporary music; it aims to convey the power of music through new performances. And that's why I look forward to the festival so much each year. Oh and if it doesn't feel like a year since the last festival, that's because it isn't: as of 2014 the organisers have switched the festival to early spring rather than autumn.

Also on the programme last night were John Adams' The Chairman Dances (1985), Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony opus 110a (1960) and Human Voices Only (2014), the brand new commission for the Royal Concertgebouw composed by Belgium's Kris Defoort, who was in the Bozar concert hall and came on stage to thunderous applause from his home crowd.

Belgian talent is a particular feature of this 10-year anniversary festival, with other well-known names starring throughout the two weeks including Philippe Herreweghe, Bernard Foccroulle, the Baroque Orchestra B'Rock and Muziektheater Transparant.

For the full festival programme, including those concerts that will be broadcast live on Klara radio, take a look here. Enjoy!

KlaraFestival 2013: melancholia

The KlaraFestival is underway in Brussels! The theme running through this year's festival, which is largely one of classical music but also incorporates dance, theatre and film, is melancholia. As the film director Lars von Trier said, "I see melancholia as a vitamin that we all need. In all western art there is something of melancholia, otherwise something's missing."

To bring this theme of melancholia to life, three composers feature heavily in the two-week KlaraFestival: Britain's John Dowland, born 450 years ago and one of the most influential musicians from the Elizabethan period, his compatriot Benjamin Britten whose centenary is being widely celebrated this year and the Russian master Dmitri Shostakovich, a contemporary and close friend of Britten.

Last night Shostakovich and Britten were on the programme in a performance by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by the young and lively Teodor Currentzis. The concert opened with Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, which was a first for me and throughout which I was totally captivated by the tenor Ian Bostridge's interpretation. After the interval the focus switched to Shostakovich, first a thrilling Piano Concerto No. 2 played by Alexander Melnikov followed by an energetic Symphony No. 9.

Earlier in the week I went to hear ‘Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorgno for 40 and 60 voices’ by Florentine composer Alessandro Striggio, the largest known polyphonic work from the entire Renaissance period. Still to come is a date with Quartet lab, a string quartet that is said to contrast established repertoire with contemporary works and improvisation.

There are also plenty of other offerings on the programme, including classical musicians interpreting Radiohead in a night club and a series of film classics all with a melancholic edge. Take a look at the KlaraFestival website to see if there's anything that grabs your attention. And if you can't make it in person, many of the concerts are broadcast on the radio.

Heavenly music at the KlaraFestival

4 Elements - 4 Seasons - Sommer (Dvd Extract) from Stephan Talneau on Vimeo.

The Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin orchestra last night gave a performance of baroque music like I've never seen before. On the programme were 'The Elements' by French composer Jean-Fery Rebel and 'The Four Seasons' by Antonio Vivaldi, both pieces composed in the early 18th century and both brought to life not only by the musicians but also by a dancer.

The performance, which was part of the annual KlaraFestival in Belgium, was full of life, energy and movement. At times I was absorbed in the music, at others mesmerized by the choreography. Sometimes I found myself chuckling at the cheeky gestures, at other times quite simply wowed by the interaction of music and dance.

During Rebel's work, the choreographer and dancer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola played with fire and danced in water as he interpreted the music of 'The Elements'. During Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons', he wooed the solo violinist through the first signs of spring, the heat of summer, autumnal leaves and winter snowflakes. It really was a truly original and uplifting performance.

Another great concert earlier in the festival, whose theme this year is 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door', was 'Kosmos'. Have a read of my review in the Wall Street Journal.

The KlaraFestival runs until September 14, so there's still time to catch a concert, be it in Brussels, Antwerp or Bruges.

The Joy of The Sixteen in Bruges

© Mark Harrison

As Harry Christophers' vocal ensemble The Sixteen sang of the glory of man and of trumpets sounding, a sense of sheer joy rose up through my body. The voices rang out and filled the Concertgebouw Brugge concert hall in what was a truly wondrous experience.

The main work on last night's programme was Brahms' 'Ein deutsches Requiem', an unusual work perhaps for a group best known for its Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. But as Christophers has said, "Since Brahms had been so influenced by the Protestant Church music of the great German master of the early Baroque, Heinrich Schuetz, the Requiem seems to be perfect material for The Sixteen."

And in case you're wondering how a small vocal ensemble pulled off a masterpiece that usually demands a large choir and full orchestra, Brahms also wrote a scaled-down version with an arrangement for piano duet: it is this version that The Sixteen performed with pianists Christopher Glynn and John Reid.

One advantage of the version with piano duet is a more intense focus on the text, with the voices at no point being drowned out by an orchestra. The tone and texture of The Sixteen's voices underscored the meaning of the words and I had the sense that even if you hadn't understood the German text, or had a translation to hand, much of the meaning would have been understood simply through the musical interpretation.

The importance of singers understanding the text of a vocal score was recently highlighted by another conductor, Collegium Vocale Gent's Philippe Herreweghe. As part of a Herreweghe celebration this month, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels showed the documentary film "Collegium Vocale, 40 years of passion" as a prelude to a performance by the choir of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. In the documentary, several Collegium Vocale singers emphasised how, for Herreweghe, the text was of primary importance. You had to use your head as well as your heart when singing with him, they said. Those words would seem to be equally applicable to Christophers and The Sixteen.

Lang Lang seduces Brussels

“The hottest artist on the classical music planet” is how the New York Times described Chinese pianist Lang Lang a few years ago; this week Brussels music-lovers got to find out why the 29 year-old is still seducing audiences.

© Felix Broede / DG

At a concert at the Bozar on Tuesday evening, Lang Lang worked his musical magic as he opened with Liszt’s piano concerto no. 1 and followed it with Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise’. He wooed the piano, coaxing it to produce the textures and tones that he desired, and the piano seemed so smitten by this attentive pianist that it submitted to his every wish. Sometimes his fingers stroked the keys tenderly, at others he struck them ferociously as he explored the score’s possibilities and pushed at the musical boundaries.

The excitement he generated through his playing was enhanced by his gestures. As he played a slow, reflective passage he threw a cheeky, lingering look at the audience as if to say, ‘Did you enjoy that? Did you hear how I beautifully I interpreted the passage? You did? Yes, I thought so’. And as he launched himself into a fast section with such exuberance and panache, you couldn’t help but be swept along with his almost child-like enthusiasm.

He’s a showman, there’s no two ways about it. But it’s on the right side of showmanship. Lang Lang avoids the pitfall of his performance being just a spectacle, all gesture; there’s plenty of substance too. The musical accomplishment is admirable, the execution a breath of fresh air. His cheeky smiles, raised eyebrows and glances at the audience were not gratuitous; they helped the listener follow the musical line, providing pointers to Lang Lang’s musical interpretation.

When Lang Lang is on the bill, the attention is always going to focus on him. And yet Tuesday’s concert also featured a world-class orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, which played as brilliantly as usual, and the British conductor, Daniel Harding, who in his mid-30s has already got a cv that many a conductor can only dream of.

It was always going to be tough to follow a first half featuring Lang Lang and orchestra by a second half with just the orchestra, but they pulled it off with a stirring performance of Beethoven’s symphony no. 3, better known as ‘Eroica’.

Whereas Harding had spent most of the first half of the concert hidden from my view by the piano lid, he completely captivated me in the second half as he directed the orchestra with his whole body, at times almost dancing as he followed the ebbs and flows of the score. By the end of the first movement, I wondered if he’d have the physical energy to continue for the rest of the symphony. Not since seeing Simon Rattle on the same stage have I been so mesmerised by a conductor; then again, in his late teens Harding was Rattle’s assistant at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Lang Lang and Harding, who have worked together on several occasions and are said to be good friends, both came across as musical personalities who had something to say about the music they were performing, who loved the music they were playing, and wanted to share that joy with the audience. The result was a truly uplifting musical experience.

KlaraFestival: September adventures

It’s back to school, back to work and back to a packed diary of cultural events. Just as suddenly as the concert halls and theatres of Brussels go very quiet in August (as most of the city disappears on holiday), come September there’s more to choose from than you could possibly have time for.

For classical music fans in Brussels, the first two weeks of September are dominated by the KlaraFestival, which takes its name from the classical music radio station Klara. This year the festival’s theme is ‘Imagine Paradise’ and, in the organisers’ words, moves “between hope and the imagination, between utopia and reality, between the beautiful and the horrific.”

As part of the festival, earlier this week I heard a mesmerising recital by cellist Steven Isserlis, with Denes Varjon on piano. Entitled Russian Utopia, the programme included Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano in D minor and Scriabin’s Sonata for solo piano No. 5. The performances were exciting and energetic, be it Varjon playing the Scriabin with such panache that he literally jumped from the keyboard as he played the last chord or Isserlis emphasising the cheeky, almost sarcastic, moments of the Shostakovich with a wry smile of his own towards the audience. The engagement with the audience was maintained to the end, with final bows not only being taken by both players, but Isserlis also amusingly allowing his cello to take its own little bow.

This coming Sunday, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir conducted by Sir Neville Mariner will be performing Britten’s War Requiem. The work, composed in 1962 to commemorate the bombing of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe 20 years earlier, has a score and text that “transcend historical circumstance and offer one of the most universal and poignant anti-war manifestos in the history of music,” according to the programme. Needless to say, this Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

Between now and the end of the festival on September 16, there’s at least one concert every day. Highlights range from the Akademie fuer alte Musik Berlin to Roger Norrington conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. If you want something a little bit different though, then take a look at the final night’s line-up when a Brussels nightclub (Club Mirano) will open its doors to music from Bach to Glass played by DJs. The festival said it wanted to take "an adventurous approach" to classical music; no one could accuse it of failing to achieve that.

Toni Morrison gives Desdemona the voice Shakespeare never did

Last night I saw one of the first performances of the new theatre production ‘Desdemona’, directed by Peter Sellars with words by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison and music by award-winning Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré.

My overall impressions of the production, which gives a voice to Desdemona, the wife of Othello in Shakespeare’s play, were simplicity, beauty, radiance and power. Not just the words, but also the music, the staging, the lighting, everything.

To give you a taster, here are the production's opening words:

My name is Desdemona.  The word, Desdemona, means misery.  It means ill fated.  It means doomed.  Perhaps my parents believed or imagined or knew my fortune at the moment of my birth. Perhaps being born a girl gave them all they needed to know of what my life would be like.  That it would be subject to the whims of my elders and the control of men.  Certainly that was the standard, no, the obligation of females in Venice in the fifteenth century.  Men made the rules; women followed them.  A step away was doom, indeed, and misery without relief.  My parents, keenly aware and approving of that system, could anticipate the future of a girl child accurately.
They were wrong.  They knew the system, but they did not know me.
I am not the meaning of a name I did not choose.

Desdemona is at the KVS theatre in Brussels until Sunday May 29. It will go on to be performed worldwide, including at the Barbican as part of the London 2012 festival during the Olympic Games. To read my published article about the genesis of the show and how it ended up being performed in Brussels, click here.

Vengerov to Make Comeback in Brussels: Relationship With Violin Back On

Maxim Vengerov broke off his relationship with his violin three years ago. “I needed these three years to put down the violin, to rest a little bit, to cool down,” Vengerov said in a recent interview with Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF). Now he’s decided it’s time to resume the love affair, and he’s chosen the Bozar in Brussels as the place to make that comeback on May 2.

Vengerov has spent the last three years concentrating on conducting. “If I would combine it with my violin playing, violin playing would be very jealous,” the Russian told RTBF. “I am incredibly happy that the time came again that I can rejoice with my beautiful violin.”

The music chosen to relaunch his performing career is the cycle of three violin sonatas by Johannes Brahms. “The cycle...is in itself perfection,” according to Vengerov, who will only play during the first half of the concert.

The concert's context is a new Musica Mundi project to develop a school for musical excellence, for which Vengerov is acting as an ambassador. Consequently, the second half will be performed by Musica Mundi Young Talents and the Belorussian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Perlin.

However, the concert will not be a one-off for Vengerov, who told RTBF that he planned to do a tour with the Brahms sonatas and then take Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade on tour worldwide, combining violin-playing and conducting.

And what about the violin’s jealousy of the conducting, the interviewer asked. “Now it’s all in harmony,” he laughed. Having experienced the violin concertos from the orchestral side, Vengerov feels he has a more complete experience of the works.

“Having this wonderful three-year rest from the violin, I feel reborn,” Vengerov said in the RTBF interview. “When people ask me, Maxim, who do you think now is the most promising young violinist in the world, I say I think it’s me! ... For me, every note that I play now is a revelation, a new thing.”

Mikrokosmos - Rosas at the Kaaitheater

Dance and music have to be two of my favourite artistic disciplines. Make that contemporary dance and a string quartet playing live and it doesn’t get much better. Last night I was treated to such a combination with the performance of Mikrokosmos.

Mikrokosmos is one of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s early works (created in 1987) and is a performance that starts with a couple dancing to music for two pianos by Bartok and concludes with four women dancing to Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4. The striking rhythms and energy of both the music and the dance complement each other perfectly, making the overall performance one fizzing with excitement, and with several cheeky touches thrown in for good measure

The creation is part of Early Works, a project made up of four pieces choreographed by De Keersmaeker in the 1980s and being shown at Brussels’ Kaaitheater over a three-week period. Early Works will next be shown at Sadler’s Wells, from 10-16 April.

Having the music played live is simply wonderful. It is no longer the background sound to which the dancers move but an integral part of the work, with the musicians on stage, their entries and exits choreographed, and the dancers including them as part of the piece, either by dancing right up to them or by looking across at them as part of their choreographed movement. The Bartok string quartet was played by the UK’s Duke Quartet, which has been working with De Keersmaeker and her Rosas dance company for many years.

For more about string music and dance, click here to read my article ‘All The Right Moves’ for The Strad magazine. The interview with De Keersmaeker below (nothing to do with me) is also worth listening to.

Where did all the music come from?

Weeks can go by when there isn’t a single classical music concert that really grabs my attention. Then suddenly there are so many that difficult choices have to be made. March is going to be one of those months. There are top orchestras, big names, great music, and sometimes a combination of all three, on offer.

The choice at the Bozar in Brussels this week includes the world-renowned Budapest Festival Orchestra, which is acting as a cultural flagship during Hungary’s EU presidency. For a different Hungarian flavour, there’s also an evening of Liszt’s music and words focusing on his musical settings of poets as well as his own writing.

Another name to jump out of the March offerings is Russian violinist Vadim Repin, who in 1989 became the youngest-ever winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. He’s playing Sibelius’s violin concerto this Friday and then Grieg, Elgar and Franck sonatas later in the month.

Always keen to hear chamber music, I noticed that there are two well-known quartets playing in Belgium this month: the Pavel Haas quartet in Ghent and the Hagen Quartett in Brussels.

And this selection doesn’t even include the Bozar gala concerts, whose programmes always have big musical names. The March concert boasts Antonio Pappano conducting the Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Boris Berezovsky playing Liszt’s concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1. The only downside to this series is the number of “VIPs” who are there as much for the networking as the music (cue more chatter, coughing and mobile phones than usual).

While the Bozar is the venue for a large proportion of the classical music concerts in Brussels, there are of course other places and a good selection can be found here. That said, when there’s a bumper crop of offerings like there is in March, the incentive to go hunting elsewhere is limited.

Hungarian National Orchestra Takes on Liszt and Bartok Under Kocsis’s Baton

Hungarian music, art and culture seem to be everywhere you look in Brussels at the moment as arts organisers make the most of Hungary chairing the EU presidency for the first half of 2011.

My first taste of the classical music offerings will be tomorrow evening (Jan. 26) with the Hungarian National Orchestra playing Liszt’s Hungarian Coronation Mass and Bartok’s Concerto for orchestra. Speaking at a press conference in Brussels today, conductor Zoltan Kocsis said that he had chosen these two particular Hungarian composers because Liszt is generally considered a Romantic composer and Bartok a radical modernist. And yet, to Kocsis’s mind, the opposite is almost the case as Liszt broke new ground and Bartok’s music includes many “classical phenomenons”.

Kocsis went on to describe the inventive and fantastic way in which Liszt brought Hungarian rhythm and religious music together in the Coronation Mass and how, in general, Liszt is a much more important composer than he is often given credit for. “Liszt is definitely a first-rate composer,” Kocsis said.

As for Bartok’s Concerto for orchestra, Kocsis highlighted two interesting features in the five-movement symphony, firstly the play between pairs and later trios of instruments, and then the homesickness of Bartok’s exile in the US evoked in the third and later movements. “You can hear how he desired to back to Hungary, which he wasn’t able to do,” Kocsis said.

An inspiring introduction by the conductor. Can’t wait to hear his orchestra.

Kicking off 2011 with Chinese Culture

Happy New Year. 

2011 got off to a great start as I was on tour in China with the Bruocsella Symphony Orchestra. As well as performing concerts in Shanghai and towns in the surrounding provinces (Yixing, Jiaxing, Nanjing and Suzhou), we also had plenty of time for sightseeing. 

The cultural highlights for me were the Suzhou Museum (built by architect I. M. Pei), the Shanghai Museum and Shanghai’s Moganshan Arts District. The buildings were amazing in themselves and the exhibits/artworks had me spellbound, in particular the bronzes, ceramics and jade carvings.

I hope to have an article or two published in the coming months based on my trip – as soon as that hope becomes reality, I’ll post the links on this blog. In the meantime, you can always read published articles about my trip to China last year by clicking here (The Independent) and here (The Bulletin).

Here’s wishing you a year full of inspiring cultural discoveries.

Cafe de los maestros: Bozar transformed for tango spectacle

Last night the Bozar’s concert hall, renowned as a top classical music venue, transformed itself into Buenos Aires of the 1940s and 1950s for the final stop of the Cafe de los maestros tango orchestra’s European tour.

Tango legends, who first performed in the music’s heyday in Buenos Aires more than a half century ago, took to the stage and proved that those in their seventies, eighties or even nineties still have the energy to put on a dazzling show. Then again, these were the same musicians who starred in Gustavo Santaolalla’s 2008 documentary film ‘Café de los Maestros.’ Film, international travel, concert tours – who said life slows down at a certain age?

Never before have I seen or heard so much joy during a performance in the Bozar concert hall. The showmanship of one of the pianists, who finished his pieces with flamboyant flourishes and winked at the audience as if to share a joke, caused the house to burst out with laughter. World champion tango dancers Daniel Nacucchio and Cristina Sosa added a ‘wow’ effect, as they impressed with their passionate dancing and daring kicks. And as soloist Juan Carlos Godoy shuffled onto stage, he had won over the audience’s hearts before he even started to sing.

The orchestral numbers were interspersed with songs by Godoy and Nina Miranda, the only female musician in the group, as well as solos to show off the bandoneón, guitar and double bass. The violin was showcased by the leader of the ensemble, Fernando Suárez Pas, who used to play in Astor Piazzolla’s New Tango Quintet.

As an Argentinian sitting next to me in the Bozar last night said, part of the wonder of the live performance was seeing these tango musicians playing the music of their youth for what might be one of the last times. An inspiring evening. Now, where was the number for that tango dance course again?

Concertgebouworkest gets top marks; audience falls to bottom of class

The Concertgebouworkest played its opening concert as orchestra-in-residence at the Bozar in Brussels on Friday. The music was fabulous. If only the same could have been said of the audience.

As Bernard Haitink brought his baton down on the final chord of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, some smart alec shouted out ‘bravo’ the instant the chord was struck and completely ruined the atmosphere. Instead of being able to savour the last note resonating around the concert hall and maybe even a fraction of silence to take everything in, the moment was spoiled by someone seeming to play a game of ‘who can shout first and loudest?’

Haitink had already expressed his displeasure with the audience when between the second and third movements there had been so much coughing and talking that the Dutchman used his baton to ask for silence. And when he didn’t immediately get it, he simply put his baton down and refused to start the third movement until he had the requisite silence. When the audience (well, one of its members at any rate) interrupted the ending too, I got the distinct impression from the tightening of his shoulders, his look to the ground and only the briefest of bows towards the audience that he wasn’t too impressed either. Just my impression, and possibly coloured by own reaction, but that’s the message that came across to me.

But enough of audience etiquette (or the lack of it). I must include a note about the music too. The highlight of the concert for me was Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 3, played by Till Fellner. I hadn’t expected it to be, not knowing the concerto or the pianist, but I was completely blown away. It was like listening to a fascinating conversation between the soloist and the orchestra and between the different sections of the orchestra. I was being told a story in the most beautiful tones, colours and dynamics and found myself physically moved by the music. The Bruckner also had wonderful moments from the opening of magical strings to a mighty cymbal clash, not to mention all the fantastic lines for the cellos and French horns. But it didn’t move me in the same way as the Beethoven. That said, that may well have been down to some audience members’ behaviour.

The Concertgebouworkest’s residency at the Bozar is for three seasons. The next concert is on April 8 with a programme of Messiaen’s Les offrandes oubliées, Franck’s Symphony in D and Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain. After that, there will be more concerts in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. Let’s hope the audience doesn’t let the performance down next time.

Vuil & Glass: powerful performance

One of the advantages of living in Brussels is how close it is to other European countries, or put more cynically by some, how easy it is to leave the country.

This week I took advantage of this oft-cited fact and, straight after work, drove with a couple of friends to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to see ‘Vuil & Glass,’ a dance performance choreographed to music by Philip Glass arranged for cello octet - a powerful combination that had me mesmerised from beginning to end. It was by far the best dance performance I’ve seen since Nederlands Dans Theater came to Brussels a couple of years ago.

The eight cellists that make up Cello Octet Amsterdam sat side by side high up on a scaffolding on the stage, the seven dancers (there are usually eight, but one was unfortunately injured) moved around the whole stage, including around and under the scaffolding. The modern music and dance complemented each other perfectly.

The first time ‘Vuil & Glas’ was performed a few years ago its venue was a waste disposal station (hence ‘vuil’ – waste – in the title). The revival has been adapted for the theatre, but as the dance company, Conny Janssen Danst, says itself on its website: “Complete with new dancers, new choreography, new costumes, and a new composition – but still with eight cellists, a pile of mattresses, and the hypnotizing, pulsating music of Philip Glass.”

In short, it was 75 minutes of pure joy listening to and watching the musicians and dancers, who performed solos and duets interwoven with composition and choreography for the full ensemble. A double thumbs up from me.

Chopin and birthdays

I often tire of hearing that it’s one hundred, or however many hundred, years since the birth or death of this or that composer. Inevitably, these anniversaries serve as excuses for series after series of concerts or related events all focussed on that particular composer, which is all well and good, except that my reaction is often to get fed up with all the publicity before I’ve actually made it to a single performance.

This year is the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Chopin and needless to say I haven’t actually been to a concert of Chopin music this year although there have been plenty to choose from in Brussels.  

I simply find myself bombarded with choice and it all sounds so “samey” on paper. Instead I find myself being drawn toward the concert that’s on the bottom of a small leaflet or a footnote in a magazine, relishing the exciting new discovery. Fine, but there’s no reason why a well-publicised concert of a well-known composer who just happens to be having a posthumous birthday celebrated can’t be equally exciting.

And maybe after this weekend I’ll give the anniversary concerts more time of day. Why? Well, a stroke of luck really. Oblivious to my feelings about such anniversaries, a friend chose to take me to the small exhibition on Chopin that is currently showing at the British Library. And I loved it.

Headsets allowed me to listen to historic recordings of Chopin performances from the British Library Sound Archive and display cabinets were filled with original Chopin manuscripts, letters and even his death mask. The walls were full of information about Chopin’s life, from his early days in Poland to exile in France and his stay in Britain.

What did I learn? Well, Chopin didn’t like to perform in front of an audience, and gave only 30 concerts during his lifetime, he had tiny hands (as seen from a plaster cast of his left hand) and he apparently had an affair with the novelist George Sand that ended most dramatically (though we’re not told how) - and of course that I shouldn’t be as dismissive of events related to a composer’s anniversary.

Collegium Vocale Gent and Saint Barbara

©Michel Garnier

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

This quotation by the British novelist Aldous Huxley was placed on the first page of the programme accompanying a concert of Renaissance vocal music that I heard this week. More apt words would be hard to find.

It was the first time I had heard Philippe Herreweghe’s Collegium Vocale Gent, not least because whenever I’ve tried in the past to hear the ensemble they have either been touring or their concerts sold out. This week’s setting was the Eglise des Minimes in Brussels, the theme ‘Musica per Santa Barbara,’ the music a sheer joy to listen to.

Saint Barbara was the patron saint of Mantua, and in the 16^th century the Italian city’s duke had a basilica built in her honour. The Basilica di Santa Barbara attracted many composers including the Italian Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and the Fleming Giaches de Wert. It was their compositions along with those of Claudio Monteverdi (a pupil of Wert) that made up the evening’s one-hour programme of 16^th and 17^th century motets and mass excerpts.

The voices of the 14 unaccompanied singers, directed by Herreweghe himself, filled the church, no matter whether it was a quiet, mournful sound to accompany words of sorrow and misery or a rich, powerful tone as the joys of life were celebrated. The singing was pure, precise and simply beautiful.

My favourite piece was probably Wert’s motet “Vox in Rama audita est” (A voice was heard in Ramah), which opened with a wonderful bass voice that made my stomach feel tight such was the intensity, the tension building up further as the tenors, altos and sopranos joined in one by one. At times, the notes were so close together that the pain and anguish being sung about were almost palpable.

This was music that did indeed come very close to expressing the inexpressible.

The same programme will be sung in their Belgium home town of Ghent on Feb. 11 and then in Rouen, France on Feb. 12. A full calendar is available here.

Karabits sets Brussels stage alive with Shostakovich symphony

Kirill Karabits seemed to put every last drop of energy into conducting the final chords of Shostakovich’s sixth symphony, ending with a 180-degree turn to face the audience and revealing a smile that you sensed had been on his face throughout the work.

For me, the symphony was the highlight of last Friday’s concert (October 23), performed by the Orchestre National de Lille at the Bozar concert hall in Brussels. From the rich intensity of the lower strings in the opening largo through to the timpani acrobatics at the close, I was totally drawn in.

One of the least performed of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies, the sixth is unusually made up of just three movements. The first movement lasts more than half the total duration and is followed by an allegro and a presto, which musicologist David Fanning has described as “a spectral scherzo” and “a manic gallop.”

Karabits, who studied conducting in his native Kiev and is now in his early 30s, was a guest conductor with the Orchestre National de Lille. His main position is as principal conductor of England’s Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, where he has just started a four-year tenure. Given the number of engagements he seems to have lined up elsewhere as guest conductor, I’m optimistic that I’ll get another chance to see him conduct.

The rest of Friday’s concert was a contemporary piece, entitled Wailing, by Chinese composer Lu Wang, who was in Brussels to hear the performance, and Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. The Chinese piece did little for me, and the concerto had brilliant moments – in fact the pianist Nikolai Demidenko was cheered back on stage for two encores - but the orchestra didn’t seem as at ease with this work as with the symphony. Luckily for me, my favourite part came last and so I left the concert hall with that uplifting feeling that comes when you have been transported away by music.

Emerging from Words and Music

The final essay is almost complete, the finishing line in sight. For the last eight months I have been studying ‘Words and Music’ at the Open University and a whole new world has opened up to me. I’ve discovered German lieder, had the opportunity to study the importance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and explored how John Milton used the biblical story of Samson and Delilah for his dramatic poem Samson Agonistes, which in turn was adapted by George Frideric Handel for his oratorio Samson.

Having both a literary and musical background, for me the joy of this course was its interdisciplinary nature, the opportunity to analyse how text and music work together and how they enhance or detract from each other. My favourite components of the course were those dealing with classical music, but the module covered everything from South Asian art songs to Broadway musicals. There were even short sections on The Beatles, rap artists (I can now recognise a couple of Eminem songs!) and Sicilian storytellers.

The course allowed me to look in more depth at some areas that I was already familiar with and discover others that were completely new to me. I reacquainted myself with literary theory, explored new ideas in musical theory, brushed up on reading texts critically and learnt how to listen more closely to music using a score. In short, I was reminded what a great intellectual stimulus academic study is and what a joy it is to be learning more about a topic that you’re passionate about.

So as I do my final checks before sending off my last essay, on Virginia Woolf’s short story The String Quartet and Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden string quartet, my mind is already wondering what to study next. A Masters in Music is one possibility. Decision time is mid-December, so I still have a few more weeks to think it over.

In the meantime, I hope to find more time to write about my “cultural excursions,” which have recently included a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by the UK-based Cheek by Jowl theatre company - a world premiere in the Belgian town of Namur no less! - and a concert of New Orleans music by the Fondy Riverside Bullet Band. Macbeth has inspired composers to write music on the play’s subject, and the New Orleans music inspired a text about war, loss and celebration that was combined with the music for their recent performance: the links between words and music seem to be everywhere!