Giovanni Gabrieli at 400 - celebrated by the Academy Symphonic Brass

It has been quite a year for musical anniversaries, but the 400th of Giovanni Gabrieli was the focus of this well planned concert from the Royal Academy of Music Symphonic Brass and their conductors, Elgar Howarth and Mark David. Howarth took the opportunity to compose a tribute not just to Giovanni Gabrieli but to his uncle, Andrea, and the city of Venice itself.

The concert took as its focal point the Canzona, the form perfected by the family as a piece of about five minutes sowing the seeds for development of tonal centres in music. Often written for two or more brass 'choirs', and using anything from four to twenty two players, they are striking pieces, taking distinctive musical motifs and working them in to a tapestry of melody and constantly moving harmony that must have worked incredibly well in St Marks's Venice, the place for which much of the Gabrielis' music was written.

The Royal Academy brass kept a consistently high standard throughout the first piece, Canzoni Duodecimi Toni 10 a 2, from Giovanni's celebrated volume of sacred works with and without voices, the Sacrae Symphoniae. This was in four parts, the ideas exchanged between the two pairs with some enthusiasm.

Howarth's piece was next, conducted by the composer in typically unassuming manner. Written for four singers in the traditional SATB form, and two brass choirs, situated either side of the stage facing each other, it was a striking piece that was cleverly structured to include two interludes around the text, a simple but effective roll call of the city's artistic heritage. Imaginatively Howarth included two specially written Canzonas himself, written in more obviously contemporary harmonic language but paying clear homage to the older composers. It was an affectionate and heartfelt tribute, as was the distinctive motif that was repeated over and over, a melody that stacked up on itself to create a sonorous but lightly dissonant chord, hanging in the air.

There was then a piece from each of the Gabrielis, Giovanni's Canzona per sonare no.1 (La Spiritata), a bright piece for four instruments with a distinctive episode in triple time. This was preceded by Andrea's Ricercar del Duodecimo Tuono, exploring sonic variations and overlaps between his two choirs of two.

Howarth stepped up once more to conduct the brief but vividly descriptive Charles Ives piece for brass and percussion, From The Steeples and the Mountains, which pits a descending sequence of bells against a depiction of the vast mountains beyond. Before long the two elements occupy the same viewpoint, Ives' favourite technique of juxtaposing two very different styles of music to make a third in evidence. The eight students in this performance concentrated fiercely to secure a strong interpretation, notable for its striking sonic pictures.

Then it was time for perhaps Giovanni Gabrieli's best known piece, the Sonate pian e forte from the Sacrae Symphoniae. This is one of the first known instances of dynamic control in music, exploring the architecture of St Mark's through the sound of two brass choirs. Here a characterful interpretation could perhaps have done with being a bit slower, for some of the quicker counterpoint became a little rushed and lost its definition. That said the brass put plenty of verve in to their performance.

Elgar Howarth was the dedicatee of the next piece, Kenneth Herbert's Music for an Idle Moment, written in 1956 when the two were studying together at Manchester University. This was an arranged version that the composer had travelled from Switzerland to see, and with three pairs of trumpet and trombone the Academy brass enjoyed the exchange of ideas and motifs, almost as if engaged in light banter on the school yard. The charming piece had all six players as winners!

Finally the coup de grace in the form of Giovanni Gabrieli's Canzon XX, a late work for no fewer than 22 brass instruments. Here they performed in six choirs, their counterpoint busy but still distinguishable, so that the ear could latch on to any number of melodic fragments and follow their progress. The Academy Brass were superb here, David conducting clearly and varying the dynamics just enough to get a sense of rise and fall in the intensity, before all 22 went through a crescendo in the final chord, which rang across the hall. In doing so the Academy Symphonic Brass completed a very fine concert, and as a footnote Alison Balsom was on hand to present a trust award to fellow trumpeter Imogen Hancock. That Balsom should feel move to express her delight at the concert on Twitter afterwards said it all – a wonderful hour's music that did full justice to one of the true greats of the Renaissance age.

YMSO - From Death To Life

The Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra is for players who are on the threshold of a professional career, and its ranks include musicians likely to move on to play for the UK's leading orchestras. To run properly it has to exist in a state of almost perpetual fundraising – but anybody who has attended one of the concerts at their base in St John's Smith Square can be left in no doubt as to the worthiness of the cause.

This autumn concert showed all that is good about the organisation, and more besides. Conductor James Blair has been associated with the YMSO for more than forty years now and his commitment to and passion for the orchestra is abundantly clear. For this program he had devised a typically imaginative transition from darkness to light – the first half consisting of two pieces dancing with the devil, while the second allowed itself an indulgence in rich Italian flair.

The devil first, though – and a fine performance of Franck's Le Chausseur Maudit, which floated in serenely on the back of its attractive cello theme, but which swiftly began to move over to the dark side. With darkly coloured brass, incisive strings and sour woodwind at his disposal Blair wrung out a passionate performance, leaving us in no doubt as to who was the victor – the prognosis wasn't good!

Things turned ever more devilish for Liszt's Totentanz, a darker forbear of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. It even predates Rachmaninov's near-obsession with the Dies Irae chant in a series of fiendish variations, played with flair and imagination by pianist Ashley Fripp. Together with incisive orchestral contributions Fripp brought fire and brimstone to the piano writing, delighting in the virtuoso passages but not forgetting the use of expressive pauses between each variation.

The second half began with a Puccini rarity, the attractive Capriccio Sinfonico, completed when the composer was 25. This surged with lyrical themes, which Blair clearly enjoyed, and there was a nice sense of ebb and flow to the woodwind contributions in particular.

This was, though, an up beat to the main event, Respighi's orchestral spectacular the Pines Of Rome. It never fails to amaze that this, the first of the composer's Roman trilogy of symphonic poems, was written in 1924. Many a film score since has tried and failed to better Respighi's dazzling orchestration and wonderful sense of picture painting, here on vivid display thanks to the enthusiasm and virtuosity of the YMSO players.

Blair made good use of the venue, with the offstage brass up in the gallery, the organ turned up at the back of the church and the piano tucked away far left, so that when the rippling arpeggios rose up at the end of the 'Pines of the Janiculum', the effect was one of surprise. There were many wonderful solo contributions from the orchestra, but Cosima Yu's clarinet solo in the same movement deserves a special mention.

Respighi keeps a tight control on the piece and its expression, so that when the 'Pines of the Appian Way' reached its apex there was a massive sense of exhilaration, and the final pages, layer upon layer added to the sound until the goose bumps arrive, were utterly thrilling. So good was this performance that many a professional orchestra would have been proud to put their names on it – and yet those regulars at St John's were not surprised, for this is the standard the orchestra regularly reach.

This was, then, an extremely uplifting night – but a reminder, too, that organisations such as the YMSO hold a vital role in our musical and cultural society. It is important to give them the support that they deserve.

Julietta at ENO

English National Opera are well known for their willingness to try something new, but inevitably that approach is a risky one and sometimes does not come off. In the case of Richard Jones' new production of Martinů's Julietta, however, the investment has paid off handsomely, rewarded with a production that is as vivid in musical colour as it is in striking imagery on stage.

Julietta is in three acts, and the decision to have an interval between each seems odd at first but is shown to be correct as the storyline develops. The story is not centred around the female character who gives the opera its name – rather it is the Parisian Michel, played and sung here by Peter Hoare. Michel experiences a number of dream sequences that lead to him pursuing the girl of his, er, dreams, Julietta, played by Julia Sporsén, who I interviewed for Classical Source here.

Michel is centre stage for almost all of the action, though there are a number of characters who pop up time and again in his dreams in surreal ways – much like they might for you and me. There is a tuxedoed horn player, a beggar, a young sailor and an accordion player, who directly influences the imaginative choice of set. After a while the action feels like it is going around in circles. Martinů's own libretto is initially slow of pace, with a large amount of scene setting in the village of the first act before things start to get going.

The plot was helped immeasurably in this respect by Ricardo Pardo's breathtaking sets and Matthew Richardson’s perceptive lighting. The forest scenes of the second act are beautifully done, silvery lights complementing the detailed characterisation of Martinů's music; while the stage is dwarfed by the bellows of the giant accordion for act one, then the keyboard for act three. This is the most concentrated of the three, set mostly in the 'Bureau Of Dreams' – not a progressive rock album title but rather a fictitious place where dreams are bought and sold, the contents of each to an extent pre-determined by such available props as Buffalo Bill and . As I said, it is a touch surreal!

Another key element to raise this production to the heights is Martinů's music, and more particularly the way in which Ed Gardner and his excellent orchestra bring every fibre of it to life. This is not necessarily music where you would sing the tune on the way home, but there are so many pieces of subtle invention, either in texture, melody or in harmonies on which the composer alights, that the ear and eye are drawn this way and that, able to admire fragments or extended passages here and there.

The singing is vibrant too, with Hoare outstanding as Michel, who by the end is considerably put-upon in his attempts to see and talk with Julietta. The final scene takes place in front of the curtain, on which the images of seven sleeping people spell out J-U-L-I-E-T-T, with Michel eventually taking the 'A' – until once again he wakes and is transported towards the land of dreams.

Was it all one big dream? Will he eventually wake up? We are not fully clear. But Martinů cleverly plants the question to make his audience question the possibility of life being but a dream, as the song says. His music, often dreamlike itself in the symphonies and orchestral works, is used to its full potential here, and every shimmering chord and whirring set of sound effects serves its purpose.

Put simply, Julietta is that rare thing, an opera that gains in dramatic and expressive weight as it progresses, and whose spell is cast for long after it finishes. Do catch it if you can.

September Symphonies takes on Beethoven

Having enjoyed the wit and imagination of Haydn and the sophistication of Mozart, September Symphonies has recently alighted at the best known canon of work of them all, that of Ludwig van Beethoven.

The symphony came alive with Beethoven at the helm, shedding some of its functional design to become a living, breathing organism that reflected an increased musical daring on the part of early 19th century composers. Few were more daring than Beethoven of course, and once he had signed off with the 'Choral' in 1824 he did so having performed a complete overhaul on what the symphony meant to composers and public alike.

Prior to the 'Choral' the longest symphony was probably Haydn's 'Drum Roll' or Mozart's 'Prague' – but this took everything to a new level, thinking nothing of introducing the choir and vocal soloists in to the last movement.

To start with, though, Beethoven was picking up where Mozart and Haydn left off, though even in the first symphony there were strong hints that departures from the norm would be frequent and adventurous. The piece, set in C major, does not imply that key for a while, its introduction deliberately toying with the listener and moving the harmony away towards F, then A minor. The effect, coming after the 'safety first' approach, can be unsettling.

Such formal and harmonic innovations occur frequently throughout the cycle, but what of the impression of the music itself? I chose the recordings carefully to try and give an equal representation of 'period' and 'modern' performance, whatever we take those to mean, for there are so many ways in which people interpret Beethoven symphonies and communicate them to their listeners. Yet what came through time and time again was the driving energy behind this music. The scherzos are incredibly vital, their rhythms driving them forward, while the slow movements explore emotional depths new to the symphony. For the former the First and Seventh are good examples, the Seventh especially flying along in the version I chose from Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic. By contrast the slow movement is sombre and inward looking, whereas in the Fifth it was at times pure passion in Leonard Bernstein's interpretation, the fuller harmonies tugging at the heartstrings.

Just for a while in the cycle it feels like Beethoven might be moving full circle, for the Eighth is more similar to the First and the Second in spirit and classical design, but the Ninth blows all of these thoughts clear out of the water. Here I was listening to Herbert von Karajan conduct a Scherzo of frightening power, but when he gets to the famous choral finale the music is so incredibly affirmative and defiant as to be almost overwhelming.

While the 'Eroica', a landmark in symphonic architecture and design, the Fifth and the Seventh are three of the obvious Beethoven innovators, a major surprise to me was the Fourth. Much of this doubtless related to the energy secured by Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, but there was a freshness and wit in the music that was immediately appealing, despite the clouds of the introduction and the uncertainties of the first movement. It was proof that Beethoven needs good performances to make a maximum impact, but also that no matter how many times you listen to this amazing music, something new is likely to jump out and hit you without prior warning.

The influence of Beethoven would make itself felt in future September Symphonies that I listened to, but by this point I could have stopped and gone home easily!

Symphonies and recordings listened to:

Beethoven - Symphony no.1 in C major Op.21 (1800) NBC Symphony Orchestra / Arturo Toscanini (BMG)

Beethoven - Symphony no.2 in D major Op.36 (1802) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)

Beethoven - Symphony no.3 in E flat major Op.55 'Eroica' (1804) London Classical Players / Sir Roger Norrington (EMI)

Beethoven - Symphony no.4 in B flat major Op.60 (1806) Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre)

Beethoven - Symphony no.5 in C minor Op.67 (1808) New York Philharmonic Orchestra / Leonard Bernstein (Sony)

Beethoven - Symphony no.6 in F major Op.68, 'Pastoral' (1808) Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly (Decca)

Beethoven - Symphony no.7 in A major Op.92 (1812) Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Carlos Kleiber (DG)

Beethoven - Symphony no.8 in F major Op.93 (1812) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)

Beethoven - Symphony no.9 in D minor Op.125 (1824) Anna Tomowa-Sintow (soprano), Agnes Baltsa (mezzo-soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Jose van Dam (bass), Wiener Singverein, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan (DG)

Contrasts and A Soldier's Tale at Kings Place Festival

Kings Place has now been open for four years, so this was the fifth festival in which 100+ concerts take place over a long weekend. It is an imaginative, ambitious idea, but one that rewards creative programming, for each concert offers 45 minutes of repertoire – but often the artists extend these to take in two or three recitals.

On the Friday afternoon The London Sinfonietta used these possibilities to the maximum with an intelligent link between two concerts of short and lively works for solo instrument, ending each with a masterpiece for clarinet, violin and piano – not the primary combination of 20th century chamber music but one which proved highly effective.

It helps to have artists of the calibre of clarinettist Mark van de Wiel, violinist Jonathan Morton – newly announced as the Sinfonietta's principal violin – and pianist John Constable, an ever-present on the ensemble’s roll call since they were formed in 1968. Each performer had a hand in the introduction of the pieces they were about to play, which helped immensely with works not often heard. We learned that the first of Simon Holt's Brief Candles, for solo clarinet, was written for his bank manager – but not played. Van de Wiel's command of the clarinet here was total, and the third piece – art project – took the instrument to the borders of inaudibility, the sound literally coming in from nothing but maintaining an incredibly quiet dynamic throughout.

Constable joined the action for a spiky performance of Lutoslawski's Dance Preludes, which served both to highlight the composer’s melodic craft but also to whet the appetite for his forthcoming centenary year. Morton was then added for Bartók's Contrasts, where the three performers kept an impressively high level of tension through the slow movement, seemingly suspended in space, but also in the more raucous ensemble passages. This was music of grit and determination, but also with a jazzy swing, the wishes of clarinettist Benny Goodman taken in to account and freely expressed here by van de Wiel.

The second concert began with the clarinet once more, though this was one of the first compositions for the instrument alone, Stravinsky's 3 Pieces. Students of the instrument know that these are something of a Mount Everest, but van de Wiel's technique was beyond reproach, his tonal quality exquisite in the quieter parts of the first piece, but with an impressive penetration in the third.

Morton then gave us the strangely moving Secret Psalm of Oliver Knussen, the piece dedicated to the memory of the London Sinfonietta's former artistic director, Michael Vyner. The secret is held in the piece's frequent references to and quotations from one of Vyner’s favourite violin concertos, but Knussen somehow disguises these lingering glances, with none of them obvious. My guess was that the concerto was by Sibelius, but the privacy of the dedication and the musical workings was reflected in the intimate nature of the piece, the legato notes in particular beautifully played by Morton.

There was little room for lyricism in the closing piece, the suite from Stravinsky's musical theatre piece The Soldier's Tale. The acoustics of Hall 2 at Kings Place came in to their own here, the dry sound ideal for the scratchy sound of the double stopped violin used almost entirely for rhythmic purposes. That, combined with the punchy clarinet and often caustic piano chords, made for a performance of grit and determination, though the dance of the devil at the end, celebrating his duping of a soldier in to selling his soul, still managed to have a smile on its face.

Top class performances all – and an auspicious start to a festival that is starting to establish itself firmly in the concert calendar. It deserves its place, for there is nothing else like it in the musical year – and to be able to say it was well worth taking a half day from work for it tells you all you need to know!

September Symphonies Week One - The Bach sons to Haydn and Mozart

So the first week of September Symphonies is complete, and I have so far listened to 16 relatively early examples in the form, travelling from the work of Boyce and C.P.E.Bach to Haydn's final output in 1794. What has really come through so far is the largely positive nature of emotions shown in the writing, though in Haydn's case in particular these have been allowed to darken considerably.

What has really been impressed on me so far is the upbeat nature of the fast movements, of J.C.Bach, Stamitz and Dittersdorf in particular, which have been very energetic. Brief though they are, the pieces are concentrated and full of melodic invention. At this stage they follow convention relatively closely, though are not afraid in the case of Arne and Boyce's minor key works to throw in some scrunchy harmonies now and then.

Where Haydn is concerned, I could easily have selected any one of about 30 symphonies to listen to for September Symphonies – and even then that is bearing in mind that I still don’t know around half of his symphonic output. With such a large canon it helps to have nicknames, though it is worth pointing out that some of the very best have no nicknames at all. One of my favourites, Symphony no.87 in A, is packed full of the customary Haydn wit, as were two of my selections for the project, the 'Oxford' and 'Clock' symphonies.

There are much darker moments in Haydn though, and it seems many of the symphonies have subtle inventions that had not been tried before – drums in the slow movement, virtuosic writing for horns, sudden deviations or harmony or key. The 'Sturm und Drang' period is rightly celebrated for its fiery emotions and occasional leave-taking of tradition, so with that in mind I listened to the 44th symphony, 'Trauer', for the first time in years. A 'big band' performance conducted by Ferenc Fricsay, it was emotive and yet kept a kind of serenity, an observation that could be levelled at other high points in the output such as no.49, 'La Passione'.

Mozart I find harder to warm to as instinctively as Haydn, yet there is no doubting the near perfection of the architecture of his last three symphonies. No.39 is my personal favourite, though it was interesting to discover H.C. Robbins Landon's suggestion, made in Robert Layton's A Guide To The Symphony - one of my companion books for this series – that it was set as a 'masonic' work. Whatever, it is a wonderfully affirmative piece – as is the 41st, whose 'Jupiter' nickname is curiously earned and relates to nothing in particular. The finale of the 'Jupiter' is one of the high points of 18th century symphonic writing, a perfect fusion of form, melody, harmony and counterpoint – with Mozart introducing the same melodic subject over and over again in a wide variety of ways and means. In the performance I listened to, with Claudio Abbado conducting the Mozart Orchestra, perfection was indeed attained.

Another big personal plus of the first week of symphonies has been that they are all easy to work to, rewarding both background and foreground listening. As I journey further in to the 19th century I know this will not always be the case, so expect some wringing of hands by the time I reach week three! For now, though, an air of relative serenity persists – and next it's Beethoven!

Symphonies and recordings listened to so far:

1. Boyce - Symphony no.8 (1737) English Concert / Trevor Pinnock (DG Archiv)

2. Monn - Symphony in B flat major (c1740) Camerata Bern / Thomas Furi (DG Archiv)

3. C.P.E.Bach - Symphony in G major Wq 173 (1741) Les Amis de Philippe / Ludger Remy (CPO)

4. Haydn - Symphony no.6 in D major (Le Matin) (1761) English Concert / Trevor Pinnock (DG Archiv)

5. J.C.Bach - Symphony in D major Op.3/1 (1765) Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields / Sir Neville Marriner (Philips)

6. Arne - Symphony no.4 in C minor (1767) The Hanover Band / Graham Lea-Cox (Gaudeamus)

7. Haydn - Symphony no.44 in E minor (Trauer) (1772) RIAS Symphony Orchestra Berlin / Ferenc Fricsay (DG)

8. Mozart - Symphony no.29 in A major K201 (1774) Orchestra of the 18th Century / Frans Bruggen (Philips)

9. Dittersdorf - Sinfonia in A minor (c1775) Camerata Bern / Thomas Furi (DG Archiv)

10. Stamitz - Symphony in F major Op.24/3 (1784) London Mozart Players / Matthias Bamert (Chandos)

11. Haydn - Symphony no.85 in B flat major (La Reine) (1785) Concentus Musicus Wien / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)

12. Mozart - Symphony no.39 in E flat major K543 (1788) Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Karl Bohm (DG)

13. Mozart - Symphony no.40 in G minor K550 (1788) Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields / Sir Neville Marriner (Philips)

14. Mozart - Symphony no.41 in C major K551 (Jupiter) (1788) Mozart Orchestra / Claudio Abbado (DG)

15. Haydn - Symphony no.92 in G major (Oxford) (1789) Orchestra of the 18th Century / Frans Bruggen (Philips)

16. Haydn - Symphony no.101 in D major (Clock) (1794) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Claudio Abbado (DG)

An introduction to September Symphonies

So, why September Symphonies?

Well if you follow me on Twitter or read this blog you might remember an equivalent month-long project called April Albums, whose aim was to cover one hundred new albums in a month. This new idea is directly inspired by that but is also an attempt to trace the evolution and development of the symphony in the course of one hundred works, from its beginnings in Central Europe in the 18th century through its all-encompassing emotional sweep in the 20th century, to an examination of where it stands now as a musical form. For how long will it remain the principal mode of expression in orchestral music?

But has it stopped being that already? Did some composers write symphonies because they felt they had to? It is after all interesting to note that some of the greatest composers in classical music made only minor contributions to the symphony's canon at best. Wagner wrote just one, Verdi none at all, Debussy a student effort, and we had nothing at all from Ravel, Bartók, Schoenberg or Gershwin.

My listening odyssey will take me chronologically from the sons of Bach and their contemporaries through a complete cycle of the greatest symphonist of them all, Beethoven, to those for whom the form meant everything and gave their whole means of musical expression – Bruckner and Mahler among them. Then onwards, to the present day.

Some works will be new to me, others ultra familiar, but one thing is for sure – this will be an intriguing and enlightening journey through one of classical music's flagship forms. I hope you find it an interesting one!