This year’s Aldeburgh festival ended on a high, with Oliver Knussen conducting the excellent Britten-Pears Orchestra in a rare concert performance of Benjamin Britten’s only ballet music, The Prince of the Pagodas. It was the only work still unpublished at the time of his death and, as such, is not generally regarded as top-drawer Britten. Knussen has nevertheless always been a strong advocate.
This was a persuasive reading, brilliantly articulated, and the extended solos were delivered by the orchestra’s young principals with considerable accomplishment. Already something of an occasion, it was given an even more dynamic context by being prefaced by a Balinese gamelan-inspired piece written by Colin McPhee, the composer/musicologist responsible for introducing Britten to this exotic soundworld. Tabuh-Tabuhan, subtitled Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos, dates from 1936: McPhee’s faithful reproduction of the gamelan sound in his core concertino lineup of two pianos, celeste, xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel felt radical; their timbres exotic, the pounding ostinati astonishingly vibrant and modern. Inevitably, it drew attention to the moments when the Pagodas score sounded a bit English: the brass and string writing sometimes typically Britten, and the alto saxophone sounding as if it had crept in from somewhere else again. Yet the theatricality of his intentions was finely realised.
Knussen also paid poignant tribute to his American teacher Gunther Schuller, who died last week, conducting Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee. With the grace and precision that is Knussen’s vast gift, clearly owing much to Schuller’s example, the work emerged with impeccable style and wit. The coincidence of the evocative flute solo in Arab Village being based on Tunisian music could not help but be most moving.
• This review was amended on 30 June 2015 to remove a reference to Colin McPhee as American. He was born in Canada.
