A dream journey through 20th Century music

Jun 15 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

Twentieth Century classical music might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it figures in a concert series at The Sage Gateshead which should not be missed, argues David Whetstone.

THIS week the Northern Sinfonia leads us to where many of us might think we don’t want to go – the 20th Century.

So many of classical music’s box- office bankers come from earlier centuries when Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky were in their pomp.

But in its 50th anniversary season the resident orchestra at The Sage Gateshead is to pay homage to the likes of Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Cage and Carter.

Under the heading Dreams and Ceremonies, the century has been split into concert-sized segments with tonight’s offering devoted to 1906-30, Tuesday’s to 1930-60, Thursday’s to 1960-90 and Friday’s to the years 1990 to 2006 (a little forgivable overspill into the 21st Century to accommodate the likes of Northumberland-based John Casken).

The Sage Gateshead’s Simon Clugston, who programmed the series, says: “The big shift in music as it entered the 20th Century was away from a formal symphonic structure and into a much more open interpretation of where the imagination can go.

“What I want to do here is to show that, while it’s not the only journey you can take through the 20th Century, it is a journey nevertheless. You will travel very fast through each decade and get a sense of how things moved.

“I think if you can get to all four concerts you will have an extraordinary experience. You will find that there is a huge range of work on offer but when you get to the end you will remember clearly how the journey started.”

Forget the closed minds of the arch-traditionalists, largely a hangover from less enlightened times. This series is a must for anyone interested in classical – and indeed modern – music who relishes the chance to hear in one week compositions that come along all too rarely and hardly ever together.

The turbulence of the 20th Century, characterised by the two world wars, a Cold War and dramatic technological advances, sent classical music into some dark places but also elicited some beautiful work.

All the composers featured in Dreams and Ceremonies were innovators in their own way, none more so than John Cage, the much-derided proponent of chance music which is not dependent on a strict score.