I was not going to pass up an opportunity to hear Der Wein<\/i>, the centrepiece of a concert at the Barbican themed around Baudelaire given by Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sophie Bevan.<\/p>\n
The concert opened with another piece by Berg which I’d never heard in that arrangement, the three movements from the Lyric Suite<\/i> for string orchestra. These came over better than I expected them to, although listening to the slowly rising phrase at the end of the last of them (for me, the most magical moment in all of Berg’s music) I miss its sequel: the truly deranged opening of the next movement of the quartet.<\/p>\n
This was followed by four settings of Baudelaire by Debussy, substantial pieces orchestrated sympathetically by John Adams. The settings are relatively early, though still later than the Ariettes oubliées<\/i>, which I think I prefer.<\/p>\n
After the interval came the work I’d come to hear. I hadn’t imbibed anything, though plenty of people around the Barbican were doing so that evening. I got to know this in a recording by Anne-Sofie von Otter, but it made much more sense in live performance, with the orchestration becoming three-dimensional. Sophie Bevan’s interpretation had a wit and knowingness that I missed in von Otter’s more po-faced version.<\/p>\n
The concert ended with Debussy’s Three Nocturnes<\/i>, which was on one of the first recordings I ever bought. The final movement used women from the London Symphony Chorus; I’ve never sung this particular wordless chorus and only now realised what a lot they have to do.<\/p>\n
Now all I need to locate is a performance of the Altenberglieder<\/i>…<\/p>\n
Review:<\/p>\n
Seen and Heard International<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was not going to pass up an opportunity to hear Der Wein, the centrepiece of a concert at the Barbican themed around Baudelaire given by Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sophie Bevan. The concert opened with … Continue reading