Nils Frahm: Live Concert, Felt - Ansatz der Machine: Heat

Last Saturday (Feb 18th) there was an opportunity to hear Nils Frahm live, just next door at the Leuven STUK arts center. The evening was kicked off by Belgian band Ansatz der Machine who presented their recently released CD Heat. An intriguing setup with 8 band members on instruments as diverse as mandoline, guitar, steel guitar, French horn, sax, violin, percussion and synths. A discrete female vocalist complements the opulent electro-acoustic background. Heat struck me as a coherent, accomplished and sophisticated effort, a darkly suggestive (and occasionally very loud) score to an imaginary David Lynch-movie. Definitly worth rehearing.

Nils Frahm, then. What to expect live from this intriguing pianist, composer, improviser? I didn't dare to imagine how fragile fabrications such as his Wintermusik and Felt would fare under glaring stage lights. I'd seen a few live performances of his on Arte TV, none of which really captured the magic of his studio recordings. However, the Leuven concert was a captivating experience enlivened by Frahm's boyish enthusiasm and his unforced communication with the audience. Frahms worked with two keyboards (computer-enhanced buffet pianos), set perpendicularly to one another, his back to the audience. In addition, a synthesiser on top of one of the pianos. The set was different from anything I'd heard from him before. Sure he started with Said and Done (from The Bells), which he has been doing for ever ('a running gag' as he calls it) as it helps him to master his stage fright (again in his own words). But improvisiatonally he transformed it into something barely recognisable from the recorded version. I'm sorry I didn't tape the concert as I have difficulties remembering what he exactly played. But it was an enchanting mix that brought one dimension of his art very clearly into relief and that is its fundamentally hymnic character. Frahm's music is deeply celebratory, a youthful and poetic homage to the wonder of being alive. It puts him in the league of fellow pianists like Jarrett, Tsabropoulos and Mehldau. It seems to me that there is a minimalist streak in his music that is coming ever more clearly to the fore, stressing rhythmic complexities brought about by phase shifts, and slow but very effective modulations. Harmonically his music is rather 'safe' and sometimes I wish he would stray off into more adventurous territory. But there is no denying that Frahms has an uncanny ability to stay at the right side of the delicate line between  poignant art and mawkish kitch. One of the songs was played on synthesizer only. In another he asked the technical guys to progressively dim the light until he was playing in pitch darkness and then to gradually re-illuminate again, as if we were living through an artificial sunrise. Another surprise was the penultimate song in which he suddenly was joined by an alter ego at the keyboard, sharing an intricately embroidered 4-hand toccata amongts the two of them. For the final song he requested a suggestion from the audience but as a coherent and audible response was not forthcoming he proceeded with an extemporisation on the beautiful Ambre from Wintermusik. After the concert he dashed to the back end of the hall (where altogether we had been sitting for almost three hours on our bums!) to personally sell his CDs. 

J.S. Bach: Partita nr. 1 - Schubert: Piano Sonata nr. 21 - Chopin: Etudes op. 25

This week we were in a quiet place, spending time outdoors and discussing the future with friends and colleagues. There was hardly an opportunity to listen to music, but then I didn't feel like we missed something. All the more so as I had been stocking up on rich musical impressions at two live concerts just before we left. On Thursday (Feb 16th) I was graciously invited to attend a solo piano recital at Bozar featuring Lang Lang. I didn't know what to expect as I hadn't heard anything by this controversial musician. A genuine, larger-than-life artist or a billow of marketing-driven hot air? I had no idea. His eagerness to play the superstar role, however, raised my suspicions (reminding me of that other enfant terrible I've never been able to really take seriously, Nigel Kennedy). So there we were in a chock-full Henry Le Boeuf Hall with more than 2000 people in eager and noisy attendance (with a contingent of 150 seated at the podium facing the main hall). The good and great were amply represented. At the cloakroom I ran into Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, but in my haste sadly forgot to wisper her a word of caution as the spirit of the European project potentially derails under the iron grip of a blind oligarchy. Lang Lang had a Bozar spokesperson especially request a silent demeanour (no coughing, no cell phones) by the audience during the performance. It proved to be fruitless because as the concert unfolded the audience became more and more difficult to restrain. There was plenty of coughing from the start and after the break, the Chopin Etudes were interrupted three times by clamorous applause. And in the final Etude there was indeed a cell phone that (as I experienced it) artlessly and interminably brought the concert to a premature end. But despite those intrusions it was a memorable concert. And then I'm thinking particularly of that great, last Schubert sonata (D. 960) which Lang Lang presented as the story of a life compressed in just 40 minutes. Despite the almost unbearable tension in the hall brought about by an audience that was anxiously trying to gutturally restrain itself, Lang Lang made no concessions and played this valedictory sonata in the most intimate manner, taking his time to sculpt every note and colour every chord in the most exquisite manner. It was quite obvious that here is a pianist with prodigious technical powers, whose musical imagination is the only limit to what his artistry is able to produce. His Bach Partita surprised me by its old-fashionedness, eschewing the percussive clarity that is nowadays 'de rigeur', occasionally meshing the voices, stressing the legato character and indulging in a rich, creamy rubato. I'm personally not offended by a romantic, lyrical interpretation of Bach's keyboard works and happily took it in stride, intrigued as I was by the remarkable technical facility displayed by the pianist. What also surprised me was Lang Lang's sober mien behind the keyboard with very little of the histrionics that for some reason I was led to expect. By the time he broached the Chopin Etudes - which he has been playing since he was 13 - there was no doubt Lang Lang was up to the task. However, for me Chopin's opus 25 needs to be played in one sweep in order to reveal the almost symphonic architecture underpinning this monumental piece. That, rather than the endless possbilities for virtuoso display is what makes this such a compelling experience. With all the audience interruptions Lang Lang's performance, whatever its merits, became for me rather pointless. As said, the unquestionable highlight of the evening was in my opinion a truly great Schubert sonata. Perhaps too meandering and disjointed for some tastes, but I still marvel at Lang Lang's amazing colouristic abilities, conjuring washes of colour with a sleight of hand. Again, there is no doubt that this is an artist of extraordinary abilities. The risk is, I feel, that these capabilities do not find a sufficiently disciplined and deeply rooted vessel to contain them. Lang Lang's art is rich, very rich and at a certain point this opulence may teeter into the manierist, the facile or simply the bombastic. As a kind of litmus test I'd love to hear him in Debussy where the ascetic and the luxuriant seamlessly mesh. Will he be able to keep the 'juste milieu'? After the concert the affable star was signing autographs in the Bozar shop. I asked him and he said eventually he will be happy to record some Debussy. May take a while, though. Meanwhile we'll follow with interest. Thanks again to KDK and WVDH for the treat.

Jongen: Harp Concerto - Milhaud: Drums Concerto, Marimbo Concerto, Le Carnaval d'Aix

Still catching up with last week's harvest of unusual concertos. Jongen's Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (op. 129) is part of the Liège Orchestra's jubilee box. It's the only recording featuring Fernand Quinet, the orchestra's first chief conductor (1960-1964). Sadly the work is not particularly memorable and I'm not likely to revisit it. The Milhaud pieces, on the other hand, I found quite interesting. The Concerto for Drums (Batterie) and Small Orchestra (op. 109) is a short, enigmatic piece. Not obviously a concerto given how the percussion often blend into the larger ensemble. The mood is unsettled, unusually so for a composer I've associated with an unflagging sunny disposition. The performance with the OPL under Pascal Rophé is very persuasive. The Concerto for Marimba, Vibraphone and Orchestra (op. performed by the Munich Philharmonic led by Celibidache and Peter Sadlo as a soloist) is, perhaps, more typical for Milhaud's rowdy polystylism although the long slow movement (lent) imparts a quite distinctive, reflective atmosphere to the piece. Le Carnaval d'Aix is a fantasia for piano and orchestra (op. 83b) conceived as a whirling succession of colourful vignettes. Really fun to listen to and one wonders why the piece hasn't been much more popular. Again, the recording with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège with Eric Le Sage as a soloist deserves full marks.

Comment: Venzago on Bruckner Fifth

Meanwhile I have been watching this clip again and again: Swiss conductor Mario Venzago talking about his recording of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony on the CPO label. His nrs 0, 1, 4 and 7 have already been issued to significant critical acclaim. Allegedly Venzago offers a very fresh take on these works. I'm planning to keep tabs on this cycle. I certainly love the dramatic flair (and the Swiss accent!) with which he talks about the music. It's been a long time since I've been submerged in Bruckner, but it's bound to happen again.

Padding: Kier - Wagemans: Dreams

This week I was distracted and couldn't bring myself to serious listening. Likely the fallout of previous week's hard slog. However, I still have to recap some of the things I heard whilst working on the report. Contemporary orchestral music works surprisingly well as an aural background when you are looking for the proverbial trees in the textual wood. I surveyed a variety of works, on Dutch classical radio's Concerthuis: Maderna's Venetian Journal, Henze's Symphony nr. 8, Peter-Jan Wagemans' De Stad en de Engel, Willem Jeths' Ombre Cinesi and finally two pieces that I listened to more closely; Martijn Padding's Kier (2005) and Peter-Jan Wagemans' Dreams (1995 version). (I also found out how to tape streaming audio so that I can keep listening to pieces when they have disappeared from the digital radio's playlist.) Anyway these are two relatively short pieces (10' and 15') from relatively accessible Dutch composers.

On his website Wagemans states that he aims to write music the emotional and musical essence of which can be grasped by listeners who are able to understand Mahler's Sixth. Dreams (with subsidiary title What did the last dinosaur dream of?) shows a recognisable kinship with the shadowy and monumental soundworld of the Tragic. The work came into being as four contrasting pieces for orchestra that have been welded to one another. It starts with a nervous introduction dominated by ponderous rhythms. This gives way to a long bleak stretch of music that ultimately explodes in a cataclysmic allegro. A long luftpause. A meandering slow section deepens the glacial, expressionist atmosphere and culminates in an angry, threefold brass peroration. Finally a long, exhausted coda. All in all Dreams comes across as very serious, accessible piece composed by seasoned professional with a good grip on his material. I've ordered a CD with his monumental Seventh Symphony to explore further.

Padding (born 1956) was a pupil of Louis Andriessen, doyen of Dutch minimalist/postmodern composers. And that is quite obvious from Kier, which assaults the listener as a brilliant, campy pastiche. I have been very impressed by the compositional finesse and surefootedness revealed by this short work and I am planning to keep an eye on the radio's playlists to hear more from this eclectic composer. Judging from the list of orchestral pieces listed on his website (including Glimpse, commissioned by Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna and inspired by Beethoven's sketches for his Tenth Symphony) Padding has been composing at breakneck speed.

Paddy McAloon: I Trawl The Megahertz - Nils Frahm: Felt - Autumn Chorus: The Village to the Vale

I fell into the ambient trap again. Well sort of. And not that I'm particularly minding. How did it happen? A few weeks ago, after having listened to Prefab Sprout's Let's Change The World With Music, I ordered Paddy McAloon's I Trawl The Megahertz. It took ages to get here and I'd forgotten about it when it came in the mail. What a surprise when I dropped it into the CD player. The album starts with a 22 minute long extemporisation. Female voice over a minimalist chamber music accompaniment (soloists of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, apparently). A long, dreamlike story. A sequence of poetic vignettes from a life. It fits and doesn't fit together as dreams are wont to do. And then the story behind it. Somewhere in the late 1990s McAloon was diagnosed with a medical disorder that (temporarily) impaired his vision. Pretty much immobilised he resorted to listening to radio shows. He started recording them, picking up isolated phrases or even words, splicing them, weaving them into the backbone of a narrative, which he proceeded polish and pad. Then he started to set the words to music. And so, by trawling the ether, the album was born. The long title track - narrated by mysterious Yvonne Connors - is followed by eight other, shorter tracks, most of them instrumental, some with voice. Paddy himself is only heard on the beautiful ballad Sleeping Rough. I need some more time to make up my mind about this weird album. The sophistication of the recording and the overall mood reminds me somewhat of Pat Metheny's Secret Story, although the music is at first sight very different. But just as the latter I Trawl seems to sway between enchantment and kitsch. An Amazon reviewer says you need to hear I Trawl The Megahertz at least a hundred times in order to get to the bottom of it. I'm certainly willing to give Paddy McAloon the benefit of the doubt. So I'll be returning to this album soon.


Ever since I got to know Nils Frahm's Wintermusik and The Bells, I'm holding this young German composer, pianist and improviser in high esteem. Again, we're in the shadowy realm of high art and bathos but Frahm seems to have an uncanny feeling for staying on the right side of the fence (which colleagues such as Dustin O'Halloran and Max Richter are not always able to). I'm always deeply touched by his music. This little video, in all its simplicity, I haven't quite been able to forget. Next week, Frahm is coming to Leuven, again, and I was happy to get one of the last available tickets. I hadn't listened to Frahm's latest album, Felt, and I have been trawling YouTube to get an idea of what this has to offer. I haven't been able to dig up all the tracks, but what I've heard did please me and provided me with solace whilst I was pulling together this big, complicated, unwieldy report during late night shifts this week. Felt is a very intimate affair, oozing a velvety nocturnal atmosphere that keeps you wrapped nice and warm in your aural cocoon. Allegedly the album came into being quite serendipitously. Frahm was looking for ways to play his piano very late at night when he had the idea to dampen the strings with a piece of ... felt: "Originally I wanted to do my neighbours a favour by damping the sound... If I want to play piano during the quiet of the night, the only respectful way is by layering thick felt in front of the strings and using very gentle fingers." The music was recorded by putting the mikes as closely as possibly to the hammers of the piano, with Frahm playing the instrument pianissimo with the most delicate touch. The result is a whirring, microscopic, intimate soundscape from which the piano sound emerges in a dreamlike fashion. Some tracks feature other instruments too, such as tintinnabuli, synths or tapes. The atmosphere is beautifully caught. The 8-minute final track, More, is for the time being my favourite. The rhythmic buoyancy of its first section connects to Wintermusik, but the improvisatory passage that follows upon it transports me back to the more elated Bells. There is a fine coda which reminds me of the music we used - what is it: three years ago? - to accompany our final slide show in the masterclass with Lorenzo Castore. Truly memorable, that experience. I look forward to listening to the full album very soon. And I hope the live performance will not disappoint me.

Listening to Nils Frahm's Felt I started to look up some other ambient-feel music. I hit upon the beautiful YouTube channel of untitledesigner: a feast for the ears and the eyes! Another find was Benjamin Vis' now defunct blog Nieuwe Geluiden. The first tip I picked up from BV was a hit: Autumn Chorus' The Village to the Vale. The album is a first and is only available for download from Bandcamp. This band of 4 Brightonians produces an expansive, richly layered and mellow sound that strikes me as a slightly friendlier version of Sigur Ros. It's post-rock that is drenched in nostalgia and an intimation of transitoriness. A British lineage that goes back to Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues is very much in evidence as well. I would have sworn that Marcus Mumford, from the folkrock band Mumford and Sons, was taking the lead vocals, but it's not the case. The resemblance between the voices is uncanny, though. I ran through the album a couple of times and fell particularly for the wonderful finale, consisting of the 16 minute track Rosa and the final Bye Bye Now. The long stretch is impeccably paced, lending it an almost symphonic feel and taking the listener on a tantalising journey that feels like reading a Murakami novel in one go. Amazing what these guys pulled off in their first album. This is a definite keeper. Thanks, BV.

Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien

What a pleasure to return to this marvelous piece! In order to prepare for the live performance at Bozar with the Brussels Philharmonic led by their chief Michel Tabachnik, I relistened to the version with the LSO under Tilson Thomas. A sophisticated recording, a beautifully matched trio of soloists, a characterfully dramatic narrator and the most finely groomed playing of the LSO: all this betrays the extravagant care lavished on this recording which is poised to stay a reference in the catalogue. If it were only available! At this point it seems there are only two 'full' concert versions listed: a recording with the SWR Orchestra Baden Baden with Cambreling at the helm, and the classic (mono) Inghelbreght (1955) on Testament. The Cambreling has the drawback that the narrated fragments have been translated into German which really detracts from the atmosphere. The same was true, incidentally, about Bernstein's 1962 recording with the NYPO where the narration was in English (adapted by Bernstein himself, by the way). In that sense it is all the more welcome that the February 2012 issue of BBC Classical Magazine offers a free CD with a full concert performance, with Thierry Fischer leading the BBC Welsh forces. More on that anon.

Together with the late sonatas, this has been THE Debussy discovery for me. Wonderfully moving music this is. It shimmers in tremolos and glissandos of velvety iridescence. The coolness of its palette works extraordinarily understated compared to the extatic slant of the narration. Not only in its luminescent textures does it hark back to Wagner's Parsifal. It's a similar cocktail of sin, violence, ruin, resignation, compassion and redemption. To my feeling the Martyre, whilst at first sight a rather sprawling affair, musters a deeper dramatic and emotional architecture that culminates in the Sebastian's death and tranfiguration in the fourth chamber. It's a great work that belongs in the select company of Sibelius' Kullervo (1892), Elgar's Gerontius (1900), Mahler's Eight (1907), Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (1911) and Rachmaninov's Bells (1913).

In addition to MTT's reading, which is a triumph on all accounts, I also listened to a reading of the Martyre's four symphonic fragments. I had heard versions by Salonen and Monteux before and neither really convinced me. But Gunter Wand's take on these pieces is a total success. The disc is part of the de luxe collection of Great Recordings that was recently re-issued by BMG. His reading is taut and dark, stressing clarity of line without downplaying the coloristic genius of Debussy. You wouldn't immediately expect it from a conductor who has based his career on choice selection of German classics. It's a live recording that dates from 1982, when Wand had just taken over the helm of the North German Radio Orchestra. The sonics, transparent and fullbodied, are excellent. Interestingly, the coupling is Pictures at an Exhibition, in Ravel's orchestration. It's not one of my favourite pieces, but I couldn't resist listening to the Catacombs and lo! how well these somber brass perorations connected to the general mood of the Martyre. Another serendipitous flash of connection between these two composers.Anyway I have listened numerous times to these fragments. Couldn't get enough of them.

The live performance then. I am happy to say that it was a phenomenal achievement. Orchestra, chorus and soloists were in great form in their third performance (after Paris, where they offered it with a mise-en-scene, and Ghent). Tabachnik, whom I'd never seen conduct before, hit it just right in his choice of mood and pacing. The attention to detail, coaxing the most delicate sfumato from the orchestra, was exhilarating. The soloists were very well cast. The alto Eve-Maud Hubeaux and soprano Pauline Sabatier, who sang the wonderful Twins duet, had interestingly matching timbres. Karen Vourc'h acquitted herself admirably from the touching, lighter solo passages. Key in this piece is the narrator, who has the keep the flow going and instill a suitable measure of pathos. Mireille Capelle did this very well, although I had some difficulties initially in adjusting to her electronically amplified voice. I never tire from the resplendent spectacle offered by a full strength orchestra from the stalls adjoining the podium. What a grand, monumental spectacle! The swarming string section, the three harps, the six horns, the celesta, the chorus, ... It was altogether a moving experience and I hope to be able to tape the performance from the radio broadcast in the coming weeks or months.

Finally, there is the CD recording that comes with this month's BBC Music Magazine. Thierry Fischer has earned a strong reputation with turn-of-the-century French repertoire and his reading of the Martyre is commendable but not great. It doesn't scale the same heights as the versions led by MTT and Tabachnik for that matter. The pulse is somewhat slack and I am not impressed by Irene Jacob (from La Double Vie de Véronique and Trois Couleurs fame) who is too matter-of-fact as the narrator. The final act - Paradise - is taken at a fairly slow tempo, which makes it more of a mournful extension of the piece's torso than a redemptive finale. I'm more in favour of Tabachnik's jubilation which he showed off with an almost Poulencian swagger. That being said, I think Fischer's reading has a lot going for it too and it may be the only one with a French, female narrator and good sound available for the time being.