Interviewed this week on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, American conductor Marin Alsop spoke highly of British orchestras. They learn fast, work hard and have a great sense of humour: qualities that must have been essential in rehearsals for this London Philharmonic Orchestra concert.
Part of Southbank Centre’s SoundState festival of new music, it consisted of five premieres (world, European, UK), a lot of new music for any orchestra to get its head around.
Arne Gieshoff’s Burr exploded into motion, piercing wind instruments and battering percussion settling quickly into a beguiling exploration of orchestral textures. More persuasive were the interludes of fragile serenity. The eerie whine of the glass harmonica permeated Anders Hillborg’s Sound Atlas, its chill tones suggesting scenes as much visual as musical: a snowy landscape, a leaden sky over an equally leaden sea, an abandoned church still resounding with ancient music.
Erkki-Sven Tüür built his Solastalgia around a musical version of the butterfly effect, with the solo piccolo sending waves through the orchestra. The brass section often sounded like the biggest of big bands, but after a roaring climax, the piece reached a natural stasis. With its raucous brass, ominous percussion, electric guitar and boogieish piano, Louis Andriessen’s Agamemnon felt episodic, while its string melodies resembled something from a Fifties widescreen melodrama.
In Helen Grime’s Percussion Concerto, soloist Colin Currie at first created a shimmering aura while the orchestra acted as a kind of rhythm machine. Later he was called on to hit percussive things as hard as possible, but the more contemplative passages were the most striking.
