Wow, what a shitshow.
Something occurred to me, while spending time with the first cluster of noxious specimens being given world, European or UK premières at this year’s Proms. In contrast to the notion of lying by omission, conveying a falsehood via things we don’t say, i realised that to write about this year’s Proms premières as i would for any other festival would be an act of lying by inclusion. It would give the impression that the majority of the contemporary music performed this year is worthy of serious consideration and critique, when the dark reality is the complete opposite. Longer-term readers of 5:4 will know of my increasing frustration with the lamentable examples of so-called new music featured at the Proms, but this year was genuinely shocking, plunging into hitherto unimaginable depths and inhabiting an abyssal zone largely free of imagination, originality, provocation or uniqueness. Bad music deserves nothing more than to be forgotten, so this year i’m going to tell the truth by omission: you can take it as read that any and all of this year’s Proms premières not mentioned here were, at best, mediocre, and at worst, an insulting, shameful affront to one’s ears, mind and general well-being.
Two smaller pieces that in their own, very different, ways worked modestly well were Ben Nobuto‘s Hallelujah Sim. and Losing the Lark by Asteryth (née Xia Leon, née Alexia) Sloane, both world premières performed by the BBC Singers. Though i wasn’t able to find any info about the words used in Sloane’s piece (the BBC really goes out of its way not to provide information these days), the way Sloane pitched its language somewhere betwixt sombre and ecstatic was low-key beguiling. No hystrionics, no cheap effects, just music taking its time, slow, focused and, in the best sense of the word, simple. Stylistically contrary to Sloane, i found it impossible not to be tickled by Nobuto’s madcap rethinking of the Hallelujah Chorus. The use of a bastardised faux-Siri voice, blankly (but, by imposed implication, cheekily) instructing the singers what to do next, was more entertaining than it really deserved to be, and while its aspirations were limited, the piece certainly gave the BBC Singers a chance to show off their precision and dexterity in passages where Nobuto reduced the music to quick, pointillist fragments.
On the one hand, the Cello Concerto by Spanish composer Francisco Coll, receiving its UK première, demonstrated that the adjective i coined some years ago, ‘Faberian‘, is still disappointingly relevant. On the other hand, while Coll does resort to classic Faberian tropes – spritely, superficial fucking about; phrases and gestures absurdly reinforced by octave doublings and heavy percussive thwacks – the piece thankfully does, and is, more than just that. A lot more, as it turns out. An early switch to slow, high, semi-suspended music isn’t just an effective (and badly needed) shift in focus, but genuinely disorienting, in a good way. This is revealed to be the true identity and modus operandi of the work, not exactly lyrical (there’s a general lack of warmth) but purposefully melodic, emanating from and continually driven on by the cello. Apropos: a particularly engaging aspect of the piece is the total lack of any sense that the cello is remotely interested in the orchestra, while for their part they seem willing to go along with whatever it wants to do. They’re not entirely passive – some lumbering low accents offer a meek challenge at one point – but generally the orchestra is supportive of the cello throughout.
There can be drawbacks to that level of latitude, and in the case of the Cello Concerto it could be argued that the cello is allowed to go on too much for its own good. Certainly, some factions of the orchestra eventually seem to feel precisely this way, but an attempt later on by a particularly excitable trumpet to reignite the original flame are swiftly cancelled out by the soloist, who, as if to prove a point, proceeds to enter a cadenza-like episode. Until, that is, the very end when, who knows, maybe even Coll got a bit pissed off with the cello’s endless, self-indulgent brooding. Interestingly, the subsequent return of some punchy, irregular Faberian energy and flourishes actually comes as something of a relief, creating an interesting retrospective tension between overzealous depth and frivolous froth. It’s a tension that, overall, makes Coll’s Cello Concerto a flawed but intriguing curiosity, one that seems to be confronting us with two evils, though personally, i can’t decide which of them is the lesser.
The UK première of Francisco Coll’s Cello Concerto was given by Sol Gabetta with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Tianyi Lu.
I remain unsure what ‘Faberian’ means, perhaps because I don’t read your writing closely enough. The only Faber I know of is Fr Frederick Faber, whose sentimental indulgent writing in the 19th century might very well ‘fit’, mutatis mutandis (“spritely, superficial fucking about; phrases and gestures absurdly reinforced by octave doublings and heavy percussive thwacks”)– but I doubt he is the eponym.
Hi Marc, to clarify the term i would start here. And you now find all articles including ‘Faberian’ music using the Faberian music tag.