Song: John Adams - Put Your Loving Arms Around Me (Gnarly Buttons)
AZALEA (click for programme cover)
WEDNESDAY 21ST APRIL 2010 - 7.30PM -
DUKE’S HALL, ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC LONDON
—PROGRAMME— (click for list of music played)
The ensemble appear, dressed in a theme of purple and black. The magnificent Duke’s Hall of the RAM is brought to life by these 23 young performers, assembled by Azalea’s founder and director Scott Lygate, a clarinettist and composer studying at the academy.
Azalea is a passionate ensemble dedicated to the exploration and performance of new music, consisting of deeply enthusiastic and committed young musicians, all of whom share a love of contemporary classical music.
First up was a rendition of Paul Hindemith’s four-parted Kammermusik no.1 for 12 solo instruments op. 24 no.1. It started off very fast with astounding xylophone playing. From the start you could tell these were a bunch of exceptionally skilled musicians, playing whatever they had in front of them with precision and articulation. The first two movements were rather fast and atonal. The third piece started with Scott himself with a solo clarinet part, an eerie and attention-grasping change from the first two. He is then also joined by a flute, then a bassoon. It is very slow and suspenseful, like that of modern film music. In comes a glockenspiel playing single notes now and again between each segment, almost randomly but no doubt written intentionally by Hindemith. The fourth movement ends as the first begun, but the piano playing with semitonal elements of the sharky film ‘Jaws’. Out of the blue come ascending strings, then a flute solo at the top of the crescendoing ensemble. Surprising and unexpected snare drum hits are heard here also. This section sounds like music written for a crime film, also not dissimilar to Holst’s Mars from The Planets suite. The ensemble quiet for a discordant piano pattern, then joined by glockenspiel once again. It sounded a lot to me like ‘Fireman Sam (3:20)’ when the fire brigade are called out! The sound of the accordion here is distinguishably noticeable and sounds a little out of place, yet works well. The impressively fast xylophone playing ends the piece.
A slightly smaller ensemble re-enter for the second piece; ‘Gnarly Buttons’ by John Adams. This consists of three movements called ‘The Perilous Shore’, ‘Hoedown (Mad Cow)’ and ‘Put Your Loving Arms Around Me’ (which i’ve added at the top of this article for you to listen to). Scott steps up to the front for his clarinet solo. It starts slowly and the sound is carried around Duke’s Hall like burning incense, gracefully, softly and pleasingly. The clarinet is then joined by something that sounds like a harpsichord (I couldn’t see one but there may have been, if not played on an electronic keyboard). Then the strings enter in random bursts, the double bass giving the piece a deep and warm layer. Then comes some impressively fast, chromatic and skilful clarinet playing from Scott. The ensemble build up to a climax, and around here a banjo part enters! You can tell Scott really loves the music and shows confidence and passion in his playing. It sounds extremely hard to play, but this man is a natural and there are no noticeable mistakes. Then to end the movement comes a trombone solo and slashing strings like that of Bernard Herrmann’s ‘The Murder’ from the film ‘Psycho’.
Hoedown (Mad Cow) starts more brightly and chirpily, with a piano and distinguished syncopated bassnotes from the trombone and double bass. The banjo here takes dominance as a lead instrument, culminating together with the other instruments to create a sound like that of a deep south or western movie; hillbilly music, if you will! It reminded me a lot of George Gershwin’s ‘I Got Plenty Of Nuttin’ from Porgy and Bess. The clarinet plays throughout the rest of the piece, the high notes complimenting the sporadic and disordered ensemble. Out of nowhere comes a loud ‘MOOOO’ cow sound, played by the pianist as he leaves the piano to press some button. There is a slight snigger from the audience! The piece ends with a few sombre notes from the clarinet, slowly and gently.
The next piece is beautiful, my favourite from the evening. It sounds like something from an emotional and moving film. I then read in the program it is appropriately called ‘Put Your Loving Arms Around Me’. It is so warm with the long and low strokes from the double bass and high notes from the violins. The piece then turns a slight sinister with the minor piano chords, then even more atonal ones, marching. This begins to sound a lot like Howard Shore’s score at the beginning of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, namely ‘The Prophecy’. The strings carefully and skilfully play small strokes and also pluck a little to give a suspenseful effect The piece reaches climaxes and anti-climaxes, including a piercing mute-added trombone with its twangy timbre. It all ends with a high note from the clarinet while the piano plays calmer chords and the rest of the ensemble come in as they did at the beginning, the piano playing that same starting theme. This is some of the most amazing contemporary classical music i’ve ever heard! And to add to that, it is played so well. I’m sad when it comes to an end. Here there was then a 20 minute interval.
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The beginning of the second half reveals a smaller ensemble at the front of the stage, including Scott on clarinet, a violist and pianist also present. The piece was John Woolrich’s ‘The Farewell’ and started with the most atonal piano playing yet, the random notes accentuated by the clarinet and viola. Lower notes on the piano are played whilst the clarinet and viola play seperate things in different time to eachother; one starting as the other finishes on each phrase. It was so quiet I had to slow my handwriting down so I couldn’t be heard! The dynamics of all three instruments were clear and played with great care. I found it amusing the piece was called ‘The Farewell’ as I kept thinking the music was going to end with the drawing to a close of phrases, but then it all started again! The final ending was very abrupt. However discordant the playing sounded, it was skilfully done nonetheless and really brought the talents out of both the composition and the musicians.
The penultimate piece was written and performed by Laura Bowler, also a student at RAM and a mezzo-soprano singer. She was dressed in an all-black suit topped with a bowler hat! Her piece is called ‘Watt’ and the whole 23 musicians were out for this, playing lots of random notes, including the percussion pronouncing different hits to the double bass’s vigourous hitting of the strings. The piano was just playing one note for quite a while, it was most strange. It all went together quite well, despite the disorder. Laura would sing and speak in different parts of her piece. She had an excellent voice, a very wide range starting off low and then singing piercing high squeak-like notes. She would scream and sing deeper notes, accentuating some words. She then kept repeating in a fast metre ‘Fathers and mothers’ in different patterns until the end..’fathers fathers and mothers mothers and fathers mothers and mothers fathers’ etc. It was quite impressive. The ensemble then joined in while Laura stopped unexpectedly and walked off into the audience, to the back of the room and then sitting next to a friend on a chair. As the music came to a climax and stopped, she shouted ‘EXCREMENT!!!’ loudly and left the room by the main door. It was all part of her piece! The music then diminished slowly into nothing, like the ending to The Beatles’ ‘A Day In The Life’ (like 4:20 onwards). The audience then applaused and Laura re-entered and bowed. It was so weird!
The final piece was Gavin Higgins’ ‘Rage Dances’. It is much louder than the other pieces. The conductor (Martin Georgiev) really had to be on the ball with all the different instruments playing different things at different times. Some of it sounded very american and filmy, other bits very jazzy and swingy with the drum rhythms, walking bass on the double bass and classic muted trombone’s ‘waa-waa’ sounds. The harp was an odd addition but brought a pleasing sound amidst the cacophony. It grew louder and louder and the conductor was dancing all over the place! Then an abrupt bang at the end as all sound halted.
It was a fine concert of modern classical music brought alive by the impressively talented and passionate young musicians. I’d really recommend you coming along to one of their future concerts if you’re in the area or you’re lucky enough to see them on tour somewhere else. These guys are going to be big, you heard it here first! 10/10.
(You can find some of the pieces played on spotify, here’s a playlist of some music i’ve seen live and you’ll find them here - LIVE MUSIC SEEN)
