For their first live performance in around 18 months (500
days, to be precise), the Manchester Collective presented a programme of classical
music which challenged the traditional perception of what ‘classical’ music is.
Their concert, ‘The Holy Presence’, is to be performed at the Royal Albert
Hall as part of the BBC Proms and this performance was to act as a dry-run; as
such, the orchestra (predominantly string-based) was surrounded by numerous
microphones to pick up and amplify the sound of each instrument (as the Royal
Albert Hall is a vast building, the amplification is a necessity there, here,
however, it was used as a way to prepare the performers for what would lie
ahead at their next performance). The concert consisted of five pieces of more
contemporary classical music (plus an encore piece) which showcased works from
composers who were perhaps as not well known (or performed) as they should be
(certainly in the UK, at least).
The first piece, ‘Harpsichord Concerto,’ was by the Polish Composer Henryk Górecki (perhaps best known for his third symphony, called ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’, a recording of which topped the UK Classical Music chart in 1992) and was the first of three performances to feature Mahan Esfahani on harpsichord. This nine-minute-long concerto proved to be a strong opener for the programme, featuring Esfahani playing a repetitive rhythm on the harpsichord, over which the string orchestra (led by the violin of musical director Rakhi Singh) whirled around in a maelstrom of sound. Hlwever, despite the microphones, there were moments when the harpsichord was drowned out by the power of the strings. As the piece progressed, the frenzy of the opening eased and a skilful solo on the harpsichord led into a call and response section with the strings (during which the strings adopted a sound and tone similar to that deployed by the composer Bernard Hermann in his famous score for the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film ‘Psycho). The piece certainly blew away any cobwebs which may have formed in the minds of both players and audience members after such a long time from live musical performances due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The second piece was called ‘The Centre Is Everywhere’ by Edmund Finnis who had been commissioned to compose the piece especially by the Manchester Collective (it is the title track of their debut album, released earlier this year). Performed by the string orchestra, this was another work which had a dark intensity to it as the scratching and scraping of violin strings at the start of the piece (picked up and amplified by the microphones) gave way to sweeping flourishes of the cello and violas as the piece built up from that quiet beginning into an explosion of sound and multi-layered rhythms before quietening down and building back up again.
The final piece of the first half was effectively the title piece of the concert, ‘The Holy Presence Of Joan d’Arc’ by the American composer Julius Eastman. Eastman had been a musician and composer whose career began in the 1960s and was associated with the minimalism movement. Eastman became something of an outsider figure, being black and openly gay, whose work (which often featured provocative titles) has only begun to be reassessed within the last fifteen years or so. This piece (composed in 1981) was originally written for ten cellos to perform but was being presented in a new arrangement for the wider string orchestra – although the three cellos onstage would play a very prominent role in the performance. The entire piece was driven from the opening to the climax by the cellos playing a repetitive rhythm which was derived from a line sung by the American punk performer Patti Smith in her song ‘Rock and Roll…..’ taken from her third album ‘Easter.’ That Eastman was able to take the rhythm of a sung line and transform it into the driving rhythm of a work clearly demonstrated a composition skill, one which became even more apparent as the work progressed and the violins and violas created rising, falling, and very turbulent sounds while the cellos powered on beneath them. At times, there was a sound akin to the ‘Deep Note’ by THX (familiar to those who saw films at cinemas or home media released with the THX sound system quality assurance standard) bleeding through as the violins played near the end of the piece. As with the previous two works performed, there was a darkness at work within the music, casting an almost hypnotic spell.
The second half of the programme proved to be a lighter, although by no means throw-away, affair. A pounding bass drum from the back of the venue heralded the start of Dubrinka Tabakova’s ‘Suite In The Old Style’, a three-movement work which saw the return of Esfahani on harpsichord as well as providing percussion on the tambourine. In this piece, the harpsichord was given space to breathe and Esfahani was able to demonstrate his flair on the instrument. But the star of this piece was Ruth Gibson on viola, who played her first solo in the opening movement as she walked up the aisle from the back of the space and onto the stage, where her solo continued and led into a call and response section between her viola and Esfahani’s harpsichord. Marking a stark contrast from the darker, brooding pieces of the first half, Tabakova’s work was powered by a feeling of fun and high energy and was certainly one of the high points (if not the) high point of an already strong programme.
The final work of the concert (officially, at least) was the ‘Jazz Harpsichord Concerto’ by Joseph Horovitz. This piece featured two guest performers, Alan Taylor and Misha Mullov-Abbado, on drums and acoustic bass, who joined Esfahani to form “a jazz trio gone a bit wrong who have somehow ended up with a harpsichord” (to use the phrase from Adam Szabo, the chief executive of the Collective and host of the concert). The piece by Horovitz was an intriguing blend of the classical strings and jazz music but one which would not sit easily in either a traditional classical programme or a jazz concert: too string-heavy to be jazz, too ‘jazzy’ to be classical. While orchestras have played alongside jazz musicians (such as on the concert captured on the album ‘Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall’ where a 21-piece orchestra backed up Miles Davis and his quintet), this piece was purposefully written to blend both musical styles together. As such, the piece is a three-movement work where each of the ‘trio’ instruments (harpsichord, acoustic bass, and drums) kicks off each movement with a solo (harpsichord on the first movement, bass at the start of the second, and then a tour-de-force of drums on the third) before the strings join in and the ensemble plays through a work which layers sounds in a way familiar to listeners of classical music and fuses that with the time signature changes more commonly found in jazz.
After concluding the advertised programme, the string orchestra returned to the stage to perform an encore piece – ‘Orawa’ by the Polish composer Wojciech Kilar. This piece fitted the overall mood of the concert’s other works and was a strongly performed piece where the strings built up on top of another to create a repetitive, almost hypnotic rhythm. Along with Tabakova’s piece, this was yet another high point of the concert (and in truth, all of the pieces performed were of a very high standard).
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