French composer and conductor Jean-Jacques Werner died on 22nd October aged 82.
A native of Strasbourg, in his youth he studied the harp, horn and conducting before completing his higher eduction at the Schola Cantorum de Paris.
He pursued his twin interests of composing and conducting throughout his life. In 1960 he was appointed to Radiodiffusion-télévision française, where he conducted several regional orchestras as well as l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and l’Orchestre National de France. He also founded or helped to found a number of groups and institutions including: in 1970 l’Ensemble Instrumental du Val de Marne, for which a number of eminent composers wrote works; in 1972 the Union Européenne des Écoles de Musique (l’EMU), later directing its first orchestra; in 1974 l’Orchestre de l’Union des Conservatoires du Val de Marne; and in 1981 l’Orchestre Jeune Philharmonie du Val de Marne.
Also active as a composer, his most recent works include the opera Luther ou le mendiant de la grâce, commissioned to mark the 500th anniversary of the reformation and premiered just before the composer’s death; a trio for piano violin and cello, premiered by the trio Lersy in Paris in 2016; and the song cycle for mezzo soprano and piano L’obstacle et la clé, which was recorded on Forgotten Records in July 2016.
Werner was also active as a teacher, both at the Reims Consevatoire (where he taught conducting) and at the Paris Conservatoire as a guest professor. He was awarded several notable prizes, including Le Prix Jacques Durand by l’Académie des Beaux-Arts (1987), the Prix Musical Charles Oulmont by the Fondation de France (1993), the Prix Pierre et Germaine Labole: Prix de printemps de la SACEM (2008) and was made Officier des arts & lettres in 2009.
I feel pretty neutral about Halloween, neither regarding it as a dangerous pagan festival or a splendid excuse for dressing-up. I can certainly appreciate, however, this spooky rendition of Night on a Bald Mountain from the Melodica Men. Happy Halloween!
The British Academy of Songwriter, Composers and Authors (BASCA) has announced its nominees for its 2017 composer awards, which will be presented in London on 6th December.
2017 British Composer Awards Nominations:
Amateur or Young Performers
The Feast That Went Off With A Bang by Ed Hughes
The Hogboon by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Who We Are by Kerry Andrew
Chamber Ensemble
Khadambi’s House by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian
Skin by Rebecca Saunders
The wreck of former boundaries by Aaron Cassidy
Choral
Affix Stamp Here by Leo Chadburn
Proclamation of the Republic by Andrew Hamilton
The Temptations of Christ by Barnaby Martin
Community or Educational Project
Anything but Bland by Brian Irvine
BIRDS and other Stories by Emily Peasgood
Crossing Over by Emily Peasgood
Contemporary Jazz Composition
Loop Concerto for jazz trio & large ensemble by Benjamin Oliver
Hyperion have just released a recording of James McCarthy’s cantata Codebreaker, which tell the story of Alan Turing’s life through three key moments: when he fell in love as a boy, during the war and in his final hours. It’s apparently optimistic opening quickly gives way to a work of great emotional depth, a fitting exploration of a man both lauded and unfairly persecuted. It is paired with Will Todd’s visionary Choral Symphony No. 4 Ode to a Nightingale.
If you like your symphonies sans chœur take a look at Philips Sawyers’ magnificent Symphony No. 3, just released on Nimbus with the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods. The work forms part of the ESO’s 21st-century symphonies programme, as described by the composer in an interview here on C:T back in February. Tradition seeps through it in the best possible way, not just in term of structure but in the intensity of the argument. Album extras are Sawyers’ Songs of Loss and Regret and his wistfully exuberant Fanfare.
Brice Pauset’s Canons (WERGO), a collection of 24 short movements for piano that took him two decades to finish, are works of cerebral, crystalline beauty. Listening to them put me in mind of a fabulous afternoon I once had listening to Morton Feldman’s For Bunita Marcus in an improvised concert hall in the middle of Basel. Which is not to say that the works are at all similar, but rather that both require a kind of altered state of listening; in the case of the Feldman to absorb the cosmic length, with the Pauset to comprehend the extreme compression. The performances by Nicolas Hodges are a tour de force.
NMC continues to release works in their New Music Biennial shorts project, with the issuing of Mark Simpson’s After Avedon, a chamber music reaction to four photographs by American photographer Richard Avedon; 13 Vices, a collaboration between composers Brian Irvine and Jennifer Walshe; vocal work Pieces of Artby Laurence Crane; and Errollyn Wallen’s Mighty River, which explores themes of slavery and freedom. There are also two disks of music by John McCabe to look forward to: Silver Nocturnes, includes this title work for baritone and string quartet with the piano quintet The Woman by the Sea and his horn quintet; Desert III, the only work on the second disk, is a piano trio inspired by the Australian desert. Both are released in November.
Apart from the Philip Sawyers, two other albums on Nimbus worth seeking out are a collection of choral works by Peter Leech, Jonathan Lee, Lawrence Whitehead, David Hugill and Robert Hugill performed by Harmonia Sacra; and the first four symphonies of Peter Racine Fricker, a lesser-known British composer who died in 1990. Naxos also completes a major recording milestone with the addition of Havergal Brian’s Symphonies 8, 21 and 26 to their catalogue—they have now recorded all 32. Two disks on Divine Art Recordings, finally: Twists and Turns is a collection of music by Rob Keeley, including Four Anacronistic Dances, Three Inventions, Some Reeds in the Wind and Seven Studies for Wind Quartet; and Transitional Metal by Fumiko Miyachi is the first portrait album of her music and includes works for piano, piano duo, chamber ensemble and brass band.
One of the first works featured will be rock guitarist Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, a work that, once regarded as a joke, has now been hailed as a ‘visionary classic.’ It is the starting point for a a guitar thread that runs throughout the festival, including debuts from Belgian group Zwerm, guitarist Clara de Asis and in a new work by James Dillon that prominently features the instrument.
Other highlights include UK premieres of works by Brian Ferneyhough and a world premiere from Rolf Hind as well as new works from British composers Laura Bowler, Laura Cannell, Kit Downes, Lauren Sarah Hayes and Laurence Osborn. There will also be a concentration on two American figures, Pauline Oliveros and Linda Catlin Smith.
Mentioned in my last round-up, but worth reiterating since the bulk of the events take place in November is Wien Modern (30th October—1st December). It comprises some 48 productions, 90 events and over 50 premieres.
Also beginning in October with performances at Glyndebourne is a new run of Brett Dean’s well-received (back in June, see here) Hamlet (21st–27th Oct). November, however, sees the opera touring, with performances at Canterbury (3rd Nov), Norwich (17th) and Milton Keynes (24th) and one final date in December (1st) in Plymouth.
ENO perform Marnie, a major new commission by Nico Muhly (see video, below) and the second by the American composer following Two Boys back in 2011. The libretto, by Nicholas Wright, is based upon the novel by Winston Graham. The synopsis is as follows (from the ENO website): ‘Marnie is a compelling psychological thriller set in England during the late 1950s. A young woman makes her way through life by embezzling from her employers, before she moves on and changes her identity. When her current boss Mark Rutland catches her red-handed, he blackmails her into a loveless marriage. Marnie is left with no choice but to confront the hidden trauma from her past.’ Performances run from 18th November to 3rd December.
Other premieres worth seeking out include a new work by Ben Smith at the opening of Series 3 of Borough New Music on 7th in St. George the Martyr, central London; John Croft’sLost Work, performed by BBC SSO in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 17th; new works from Nik Bärtsch and the OPUS 2017 competition winner (as yet unannounced) played by the Britten Sinfonia at Wigmore Hall also on 17th; and Arlene Sierra’s Nature Symphony, with the BBC Philharmonic at Bridgewater Hall on 25th.
Don’t hang around, finally, if you are interested in booking tickets for performances of Stockhausen’s Stimmung and Cosmic Pulses at the Barbican on 20th November. The concert marks 10 years since the composer’s death and is likely to sell out quickly.
The European Youth Orchestra has been driven from London as a result of the UK's decision to leave the EU. It will now be based in Rome and in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Most sadly the future of British musicians in the orchestra are also in doubt, the orchestra website saying that 'British musicians are still eligible to apply this autumn to join the orchestra in 2018, when Britain will still be a member' and that 'The arrangement for future years will depend on the details of the agreement negotiated between the EU and the UK.'
Swiss composer Klaus Huber died in Perugia, Italy on October 2nd. He was 92.
Born in 1924, Huber attended the Zürich Conservatory, studying the violin with Stefi Geyer and composition with Willy Burkhard. He worked as a teacher, including at the Basel Music Academy (1964–73) and the Freiburg Musikhochschule (1973–90). Many of his students—including Toshio Hosokawa, Brian Ferneyhough, Kaija Saariaho and Wolfgang Rihm—have become significant figures in their own right.
Huber was of the same generation as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom he was often compared. Whilst he closely followed the developments of the Darmstadt school, his adoption of serialism was, however, less dogmatic—his breakthrough work, chamber cantata Des Engels Anredung an die Seele (1957, performed 1959), for example, adopts a rigorous form of serial structuring that nevertheless permits the emphasising of consonant intervals.
Hubert’s other influences have included medieval and renaissance music (Cantiones de Circulo Gyrante, Agnus Dei cum recordatione); the system of modes of Arabic music (Die Erde bewegt sich auf den Hörnern eines Ochsen, Lamentationes de fine vicesimi saeculi); and Latin American liberation theology (Senfkorn, 1975). Other than serialism, specific technical preoccupations include the use of spatial acoustics (Die umgepflügte Zeit and Spes contra spem) and the creation of a new system of tonality based on third tones (first appearing in works at the end of the 80s, discussed further in video, below).
These diverse influences led Brian Ferneyhough to describe Hubert as a a composer that ‘avoided being pinned down to a marketable set of stylistic fingerprints, each work being both a highly individual response to a clearly focused and technically well-honed set of issues and precise reconsideration of the relationship of contemporary music languages to the real imperfect world in which they are embedded.’
Huber was awarded many prizes during his lifetime, including the Beethovenpreis of the city of Bonn (for Tenebrae) in 1970, the Art Prize of the city of Basel in 1978, the European Church Music Prize by the city of Schwäbisch Gmünd in 2007, the Music Prize Salzburg in 2009 and the Ernst von Siemens-Musikpreis in 2009.
The manuscripts of his works are held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel.
I can imagine that the story of Richard White has warmed the heart of many a middle-aged (and older) composer. White has just had his 900-page opera selected for a workshop performance at the National Opera Center Recital Hall in Manhattan. The work, entitled Hester and based upon The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthornewas written in spare moments at home and whilst working as a security guard at Columbia University from 1991. It marks his composing debut. Richard White is 82.
Music-lovers have long been obsessed with precocious talent, constantly on the lookout for the next Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn or Prokofiev. I agree that young composers should be supported, encouraged and even celebrated. But could we not do a bit more to support older composers too?
I spend hours each month compiling composer opportunities here at Composition:Today. I would say that perhaps a third of these are limited by age. The point at which you are considered too old varies but, basically, by the time you are 40 all of these competitions are off-limits. And the problems don’t end there.
Often a competition rubric will require that a piece must have been written recently, usually within the last five to ten years. My guess is that there are many middle-aged composers who have been through the system, maybe churned out some major works, but have now, essentially, stopped composing because they have lost contact with decent performers and aren’t sure what to do next. It takes a certain type of heroism to continue to write when no-one wants your music any more. Some, like Richard White, manage it. Others just give up.
My worry here is two-fold. Firstly, our competitions are not helping us to unearth these forgotten older works, some of which might even be masterpieces. Secondly, and more obviously, we are not unearthing the talent that went into making them. Like Janáček (pictured), whose premiere of Jenůfa at the age of 62 established his reputation, there must surely be a few older composers worth reanimating before it is too late?
The latest request from a commercial organisation that musicians work for free has been given a withering response on social media.
The organisation in question was East Midlands Airport, who recently advertised this ‘opportunity’: “We are always looking for new ways to enhance our passenger experience whilst they are with us at the airport and, what better way than by showcasing some of our region’s best musical talent? Unfortunately we can’t offer performers a fee, but they will be well looked after by our staff while enjoying the opportunity to perform in front of a captive audience.”
One response, from flautist Nicola Loten, typified the criticism:
Dear East Midlands Airport,
I am a musician based in the U.K. and I run a small, professional, baroque ensemble. We are looking for an airline to fly us to Amsterdam as I've always wanted to perform there. We would like to offer you the opportunity to fly us there, free of charge. Unfortunately we can't offer you a fee but we will be well behaved during check in and it would be great exposure for the airport amongst a group of frequent travellers.
Please let me know if this would be agreeable to you,
Nicola Loten
The airport, belatedly, realised the error of its ways, saying that the advert was ‘in no way designed to undermine the skill, hard work and professionalism that is required to perform in public. We apologise for any upset caused.’
I guess we’ve seen variations of this story a hundred times over recent years, but it made me wonder about the equivalent situation with regard to composers. If players are sometimes treated with contempt by moneyed organisations (such as airports) that ought to know better, perhaps composers are in a position even more desperate still—they barely exist at all.
There have been many noble attempts to connect composers with private individuals and companies who might wish to commission music. I know of some such initiatives that have borne fruit. But they remain more the exception than the rule—commissions for pieces and ‘composer in residence’ opportunities tend to come much more from (or at least in corporation with) publicly funded bodies. And where there are real commercial opportunities, these tend to limit the scope of the composer’s creativity, since they necessarily must fulfil certain commercial expectations. (This is categorically not to belittle composers who work in genres such as film music. I personally find the ‘if it’s commercial then it’s not art’ argument beyond tiresome and, in many cases, demonstrably erroneous—think, actually, of the many very great film scores.)
It would have been be nice if this airport in question, instead of saying to itself ‘We need to show off the musical talent of our region, let’s invite performers to come and entertain our passengers’ had maybe thought ‘Let’s invite some composers here to make some pieces, or even do some creative workshops and events with passengers.’ If they had advertised this and offered no fee, my guess would be there would have been no outcry whatsoever. Many composers would have seen it as progress.
Christian Morris
Hyperion have 
The fortieth 
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Swiss composer Klaus Huber died in Perugia, Italy on October 2nd. He was 92.
I can imagine that the story of Richard White has warmed the heart of many a middle-aged (and older) composer. White has 
The latest request from a commercial organisation that musicians work for free has been given a withering response on social media.
CompositionToday
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