Latest news with #composition
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Furtwängler: Symphony No 2 album review – conductor's own massive work has real curiosity value
Wilhelm Furtwängler may have become one of the greatest conductors of the first half of the 20th century, but as a teenager his musical aspirations were focused firmly on becoming a composer. That ambition faded in his 20s and 30s as his success as a conductor increased, and it wasn't until the 1930s, when he was in his late 40s, that Fürtwängler returned to composition, perhaps as an escape from the ever worsening political situation in Germany and Austria, and the pressures that the Nazis placed upon him. From then until his death in 1954, he produced a succession of large-scale works, the most significant of which were three symphonies. The Second Symphony, which Fürtwängler began in January 1945, immediately after taking refuge from the Nazis in Switzerland, is the most massive of them and regarded as his finest achievement; Neeme Järvi's performance with the Estonian orchestra, which, while recognising the work's massiveness, never seems unnecessarily slow, lasts 74 minutes. Yet it's a strange, problematic work, easier to admire than to like, and built from an amalgam of Romantic voices from Schumann to Richard Strauss with Bruckner and Brahms featuring most prominently. From moment to moment the music is pleasant enough, but without ever becoming truly memorable; themes tend to move in predictable, stepwise fashion and developments are worked out at pedantic length. Järvi's recording joins versions by Barenboim, Jochum and Fürtwängler himself already in the catalogue; if it's a work that carries real curiosity value, it's one that few are likely to want to hear very often. This article includes content hosted on We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Listen on Apple Music (above) or Spotify
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ronald Corp obituary
Ronald Corp, who has died aged 74, made an indelible mark on the British music scene, particularly in his work with choral singers. Having founded the New London Orchestra in 1988, he went on to establish and conduct its children's choir, as well as directing the London Chorus (previously the London Choral Society) and Highgate Choral Society, bringing together singers of all ages and abilities. A prolific composer, especially of choral pieces and songs, he wrote in an engaging style that delighted performers and audiences alike. His works in all genres were well crafted, often characterised by lively, syncopated rhythms and abundant melodic appeal. In 1996 he launched a series of recordings of Light Music Classics (four of British music, one of European and one of American) with his New London Orchestra. The British discs featured the signature tunes to such classic radio and television programmes as The Archers, Music While You Work, Dr Finlay's Casebook and Desert Island Discs, with scores by Eric Coates, Ronald Binge and many others. His own music, though similarly easy on the ear, was generally more serious in tone, owing much to the English choral tradition; it was also mildly dissonant, with Benjamin Britten, Holstian bitonality and Martinů among the notable influences. Corp's aim in founding the New London Children's Choir was to involve children in the performance of music both traditional and contemporary. To that end, he both commissioned pieces by such composers as Michael Nyman and Louis Andriessen (both patrons of the choir) and wrote many himself. The choir made multiple appearances at the BBC Proms and at other venues, as well as recording for film and television. Born in Wells, Somerset, the son of Geoffrey, a municipal gardener, and an amateur pianist and piano accordionist, and his wife, Elsie (nee Kinchin), Ronald began composing even before he learned to play the piano, using his own notation to remind himself of his intentions. After studying music at Oxford University, where Simon Preston was an important mentor, he worked for the BBC in London as a librarian, producer and presenter (1973–87). In 1999 he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England, serving as a non-stipendiary minister successively at St Mary's Kilburn, St Mary's Hendon and St Alban the Martyr, Holborn. A considerable proportion of his vocal works are settings of sacred texts or works by such poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins (Laudamus), George Herbert (Mary's Song), Francis Thompson (The Hound of Heaven) or John Ruskin (Nothing Can be Beautiful Which is Not True), reflecting his religious and ethical approach to life. Despite his calling, he did not restrict himself to Christian texts. Adonai Echad (2000), for soloists, choruses and orchestra, juxtaposes texts from the Jewish and Christian faiths, including psalms, prayers and poems. His orchestral compositions included four symphonies, two piano concertos and concertos for flute, recorder and cello. The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), drawing on melodic fragments from that composer's music, was composed for Help Musicians UK and premiered at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in 2011. It may be performed either by 16 solo singers (as at the premiere), or chorus and orchestra. Another piece for chorus and orchestra, This Sceptr'd Isle, was given its premiere at the Barbican the following year in a concert with the Highgate Choral Society, marking the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. And All the Trumpets Sounded, given its premiere in 1989 by the Highgate Choral Society, which commissioned it, was considered by Corp his first important composition. Referencing Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem and Britten's War Requiem, both of which he hugely admired, the work similarly features poems of the first world war, the requiem sequence and the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Other substantial choral works with orchestra included Behold the Sea (2016), again commissioned by the Highgate Choral Society. Among his smaller-scale works were Dover Beach, commissioned by the BBC Singers, and a setting of Dante for the ensemble Gesualdo Six. His operas included The Pelican, based on the play by Strindberg; Wenceslas, a Christmas opera for children; and The Ice Mountain, also for children. Letters from Lony (2017) was a setting of letters from a Jewish woman in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, Leonie (Lony) Fraenkel, to her infant grandson, Peter Lobbenberg, unfolding a story of the writer's removal from her home to the Westerbork transit camp, to Theresienstadt and thence to Auschwitz. Scored for soprano, piano and string quartet, the work is essentially conversational – there are mentions of the ping-pong club upstairs and a bathtub crocodile that squirts water – though Corp succeeded in darkening the tone in a series of four interludes. He was due to conduct it again at the Three Choirs festival this August. He was a voracious reader, not least of poetry, and his songs include sets devoted to the verse of individual poets, among them Walt Whitman, Francis Thompson, Robert Browning, AE Housman, WB Yeats and William Blake. As in his choral works, Corp displayed a mastery of word-setting: his compositions were unfailingly pleasing to sing. Some of Corp's finest music is contained in the symphonies: the First, with its opening bold brass sonorities presaging powerful harmonic plunges later; the darker, serious-minded Second and Third; and the Fourth commissioned for the chamber forces of the Echo Ensemble. The Cello Concerto, with its movingly elegiac slow movement, and the First Piano Concerto are also worthy of special note. Releases on CD included The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; three string quartets, a clarinet quintet ('Crawhall') and the dramatic scena The Yellow Wallpaper, adapted from the short story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. His recordings of music by other composers included, in addition to the light music series, Rutland Boughton's opera The Queen of Cornwall, and works by John Foulds, Arthur Sullivan (Corp was vice-president of the Sullivan Society), Satie, Poulenc, Prokofiev and Grazyna Bacewicz. His orchestrations of Satie's Trois Gnossiennes featured in the film Chocolat (2000), starring Juliet Binoche. Corp believed strongly in the spiritual power of music. Inspired by his religious faith, a thirst for life and a sense of the act of creation as a voyage of discovery, he used to say that 'a day without writing is a day wasted'. In public and private, he was a warm-hearted, sympathetic man, who wanted his music to be useful to society. He is survived by his civil partner, John Glass, sister, Pauline, and brother, Robert. Ronald Geoffrey Corp, composer, conductor and priest, born 4 January 1951; died 7 May 2025
Irish Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Emma Rawicz: ‘I think jazz is made for people who don't necessarily fit into life's prescribed boxes'
When the young English saxophonist, composer and bandleader Emma Rawicz was 16 and a pupil at Chetham's in Manchester , the largest and most internationally renowned specialist youth music school in the UK, she somehow found time – in addition to her exacting music and academic studies – to practise between eight and 10 hours a day. Although she had been playing classical violin since the age of six – and also had piano, clarinet and singing lessons – Rawicz had only started to focus exclusively on the saxophone – first the alto and then the tenor – for a year. And she felt she had a lot of ground to catch up on. 'I was, like: 'Oh my God, everyone knows so much, and they can all do all this amazing stuff on their instruments,' so I spent every spare hour pretty much practising, to the point where I nearly hurt myself,' the 23-year-old says. 'Occasionally, I'd have to take Saturday off because my lip was swollen and I literally couldn't play. I'd try, but it would just be too painful.' In keeping with her remarkable personality – she is, she says, 'a massive perfectionist, complete workaholic and habitual overachiever', who speaks four languages and gained two private-school scholarships – all those thousands of hours of application and industry soon paid off. READ MORE Extravagantly gifted, Rawicz (pronounced 'RA-vich') began to show both a preternatural talent on the tenor saxophone, particularly in the tricky upper registers of the instrument, and an ability to write clever and captivating compositions that, as well as being firmly rooted in modern jazz, displayed fascinating connections to styles such as rock, fusion, folk, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban. To say she was mature beyond her years was at once abundantly clear and a gross understatement. Winning a place, aged 18, on the jazz course at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London, where Rawicz also further developed her not-inconsiderable skills on soprano saxophone, flute and bass clarinet, she began to play gigs, both as a side musician and leader, around the city. Word quickly got around. At the end of her second year, and still only 19, she made her debut, with her own band and music, at London's most storied jazz club, Ronnie Scott's. In 2022 Rawicz self-released a highly praised debut album, Incantation, featured as a soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra and was named newcomer of the year at the annual Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Favourable comparisons started to be made to such virtuoso American tenor players as Chris Potter, Joshua Redman and Donny McCaslin, and she began to play clubs and festivals throughout Europe. Rawicz made her Irish debut at last year's Limerick Jazz Festival. Now she and her quartet are about embark on an eight-date Music Network tour of Ireland. The activity and acclaim continued. In 2023 Rawicz signed to ACT, a creative and progressive jazz label based in Germany, and began to write for, organise and conduct her own 20-piece jazz orchestra. She also built an audience of almost 50,000 followers on Instagram for her winning daily practice videos and live clips. Jamie Cullum – the English singer, pianist, songwriter and BBC Radio jazz presenter – hailed Rawicz as an astonishing talent. Reviewing her second album, Chroma, the Guardian 's jazz critic, John Fordham, wrote that 'the warp speed of her evolution is showing no sign of slowing.' And BBC Radio 3 declared, fairly accurately, that 'the name Emma Rawicz is on everyone's lips right now.' 'People say: 'Oh, you're so young to be doing X, Y or Z,' and I know this logically, and that I'm insanely hectic and busy, and I'm very grateful for and really value that, because I know it's rare,' she says, speaking from her flat in southeast London during a short break in touring. 'But I'm also just trying to live life as it comes, to relish every moment, to have as many of the experiences that I really want to have as I can.' Rawicz grew up an only child in rural north Devon, near to her maternal grandparent's farm, Exmoor National Park and the sea. 'I think being Devonian is quite close to my heart; it's about valuing peace, space, community and connection with people,' she says. 'But if you want to become a jazz musician, and be exposed to lots of different teachers, instruments and gigs, then growing up there may not be the simplest place to start.' Her mother was employed variously in the civil service, social work and commerce, and her father was an engineer; both were highly successful and spent considerable periods working abroad. Her paternal grandfather was born in Poland (Emma's full surname is Rawicz-Szczerbo), but he left, aged eight, with his mother during the second World War. They made their way, mostly on foot, to Britain, where they were eventually reunited with Rawicz's great-grandfather, a decorated general in the Polish army. While her father has always played piano 'for fun', and her maternal grandmother played organ at her local church, Rawicz did not grow up in an especially musical household. She did, however, have access to her father's iPod. 'He was a very eclectic listener, and on there was everything from AC/DC to Avril Lavigne, classical music and Turkish prepared piano, and I loved all of it and found it very inspiring. I feel it's good that I didn't get a conception of genre until much later on.' Emma Rawicz: 'The saxophone seemed like the coolest instrument ever, and I instantly wanted to play it.' In her teens she also listened avidly to singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Gabriel Kahane, film soundtracks and the music of the Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell; she also tried to play Irish jigs and reels on the violin. 'It was really very random,' she says. The first time she heard jazz was when her parents took her, aged 12, to a concert by an amateur big band at the nearby Dartington International Summer School. She was immediately hooked. 'The brass instruments and the harmony and the sound of the drums and the power behind that sound ... it just grabbed me,' she says. 'The saxophone also seemed like the coolest instrument ever, and I instantly wanted to play it.' Her parents, however, encouraged her to focus on the many other instruments, choirs, ensembles and orchestras in which she was already involved. Rawicz continued 'to beg'; when she reached 15 they relented. 'As soon as I started playing the saxophone, especially the tenor, I was like: 'Oh, okay, I haven't been playing the right instrument',' Rawicz says. 'The saxophone was the one I felt I could really express myself through, the instrument that could help make music my life. 'I could also sense that jazz was a real nerd-friendly genre, which suited me, because I was probably quite an unusual kid. I think jazz is made for people who don't necessarily fit into life's prescribed boxes.' That unusual kid may have been a dedicated bookworm who loved learning and was academically bright – she was one of only 730 pupils in England in 2018 to achieve the highest mark in all nine of her GCSEs – and in person, albeit over a video call, she is thoughtful, articulate and cheerful. But Rawicz has also faced more than her share of struggles throughout her young life. As a child she had encephalitis, which at the time affected her eyesight, among other things, and which she believes led to her suffering, from the age of 13 to 22, from complex regional pain syndrome. 'I was in pain for quite a lot of every day, and it was pretty rubbish,' she says. 'But more recently I've discovered powerlifting, and I've made some diet and lifestyle changes. My health is now in a much, much better place.' Emma Rawicz: 'It was a long, long time before I felt in any way confident about my playing. I suppose I have overcome it.' Photograph: Gregor Hohenberg/ACT Rawicz also experienced severe performance anxiety, especially when she started playing the saxophone. 'It was quite weird, because I loved playing the instrument, but I would freeze whenever I had to play in front of anyone, especially if I had to improvise,' she says. 'It caused quite a lot of trouble when I went to Chetham's and at the start of my time at the academy. I couldn't play in classes, or even in front of my one-to-one teachers. 'It was a long, long time before I felt in any way confident about my playing. I suppose I have overcome it. I think a lot of that is down to realising how important it is to surround yourself with people who want the best for you, on stage and off stage. And the idea of just having to get over myself and go out and do the best I can, because there's no better cure, in my experience, than necessity.' Positive audience and critical reception – and the Royal Academy awarding her, on graduating last year, the distinguished Musicians' Company Silver Medal, a prize not previously given to a jazz student – must also have helped shape a more affirmative view of herself. Her debut release on ACT, the adventurous and occasionally even prog-leaning Chroma, received almost universally enthusiastic reviews. (Its title reflects another example of the way her brain is wired differently: Rawicz has chromesthesia, a type of synaesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of colour, shape and movement.) Its follow-up, Big Visit, a supple and sympathetic duo album with the star Welsh pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock that was released in March, went down equally well. Rawicz rejects the stereotype that jazz musicians have to suffer to create great work – a fact evidenced in the many online videos of her spirited and upbeat performances. 'I'm not saying the tortured artist doesn't exist, but, for me, music has been such a source of healing, growth, learning ... and joy. What I want more than anything is to continue being a musician that gets joy out of music and, more importantly, brings joy to the people that hear it. 'One of the biggest privileges of being a musician is getting to make other people's lives just even a little bit better from doing what you love to do. I mean, how amazing is that?' Emma Rawicz plays Letterkenny, Sligo, Roscommon, Tinahely, Dublin, Listowel, Cork and Newbridge between Wednesday, June 4th, and Friday, June 13th, on a Music Network tour
RNZ News
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Making rainbow connections
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Tabea Squire Photo: Eustie Kamath Once again, secondary school music students across the country are competing in Aotearoa's annual chamber music contest. But for this, the competition's 60th incarnation, composer Tabea Squire has attempted to address a perennial issue: how do you put very different ensembles on an equal footing? Squire's solution is a little like a set of Lego blocks - short musical phrases coded by colour (she calls them 'bricks') some of them pitched, some just rhythm - which competitors can arrange, repeat, mix and match as they like, to build their own piece. It's called "Rainbow Construction" and the blocks she's set out in the user manual represent all the colours of said rainbow, along with ultraviolet, which is a family of options for rests. As in the sounds you can't hear - get it? Speaking to RNZ Concert, Squire said the inspiration for the piece came from Terry Riley's "In C" which also invites players to mix and match musical ideas set out by the composer. Squire says there's only one hard and fast rule: don't transpose the notes she's written in the bricks into different keys. Otherwise it's all over to the competing groups and the instruments they use, be they steel percussion bands or string quartets or anything in between, to decide how to build their piece. And no, if it doesn't suit your ensemble, Squire says you don't have to attempt it. Meanwhile Squire, who won the composition category of the New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Contest in 2006, continues to work on her fully-scored music for concerts, including one which the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will play later this year. And here's a video of another of her works, "I Dance, Unseen". District rounds for this year's NZCT Chamber Music Contest began this week, with the final in Auckland in August.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pierre Boulez: Éclat/Multiples album review – two of his most significant works are played with fabulous precision
Almost all the major works from the second half of Pierre Boulez's composing career developed in the same way: their starting point is a small-scale ensemble or solo piece that served as the kernel for the much expanded and elaborated later score. That was the process that led to the final versions of works such as Mémoriale, Anthèmes and …explosante-fixe…, and to the pair of substantial pieces that are played with fabulous precision and incisiveness on this disc. Éclat/Multiples, completed in 1981, began life in 1965 as Éclat, a kit-like eight-minute exploration of the sound world Boulez had first created for the central movements of his masterpiece Pli selon Pli, and which he then expanded to a work for 25 instruments. For Sur Incises, which grew by stages through the mid 1990s, the starting point was a solo-piano piece, Incises, while the final work uses trios of pianos, harps and percussionists to create a seductive world of mysterious trills and decaying resonances and sudden outbursts of frantic activity. It's clear from the sketches for Éclat/Multiples that Boulez intended to extend it beyond the 28-minute version that is played today, and this disc includes an extra four minutes of music never recorded before; there may be yet more to come in the future, but in the meantime these are fine accounts of two of Boulez's most significant works. One track available on Bandcamp
