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.
Last year Baltic played host to his Variations VII, featuring household implements and live sound streams piped in from various points around Tyneside, as part of the AV Festival. What it lacked in harmony, it more than made up for in drama and spectacle.
Tomorrow, in a programme also featuring works by Stravinsky, Messiaen and Stockhausen, comes Cage’s even more famous 4’33’’ in which the orchestra offers us four minutes and 33 seconds of silence – or, rather, non-playing.
It is said that Cage got the idea after entering a sound-proof chamber at Harvard University. He expressed surprise that he could still hear noises and it was explained to him that this would have been the sounds generated by his own circulatory and central nervous systems.
In 4’33’’, dramatic proof that there’s no such thing as silence, he was simply adding a conventional structure to the noises that surround us all the time, even when we are meant to be sitting still.
The premiere took place in New York in 1952 as part of a recital of contemporary piano music. Pianist David Tudor signalled the start of the performance by sitting down at the instrument and closing the lid. He opened it briefly at the close of each ‘movement’ and then closed it again.
The 4’33’’ soloist on Tuesday will be regular Sinfonia pianist Kate Thompson. And before you make any jokes about money for old rope, you should know that she is also performing in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time which was composed and performed in a concentration camp.
Simon Clugston says: “The nice thing about 4’33’’ is that however many jokes you make, John Cage would have been laughing as well. He had a fantastic sense of humour.”
Arguably the biggest favour any concert programmer can do Karlheinz Stockhausen – frequently derided by the Bach and Mozart fans in his day – is to make him follow 4’33’’. After Tuesday’s ‘silence’ – or period of coughing, shuffling and programme rustling – will come Stockhausen’s Zyklus.
It may be apocryphal, but it is said that the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, when asked “Have you heard any Stockhausen?”, replied: “No, but I believe I have trodden in some.”
The master of electronic music composed Zyklus in 1959 for a percussionist who can begin on any page of the score, read it left to right or even position it upside down. The soloist in Zyklus will be Simon Limbrick.
Though frequently derided, it must be said that Stockhausen, who died in 2007, is now regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th Century. The Beatles acknowledged their debt to him by including his face on the sleeve of their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
American composer Elliott Carter, whose 1975 piece A Mirror on Which to Dwell features in Thursday’s concert, was born in 1908 and is still going strong. In 2006, as part of a prolonged centenary programme, the BBC Symphony Orchestra performed a concert in London called Get Carter: The music of Elliott Carter.
Friday’s concert concludes with the song cycle Farness by John Casken (interviewed in this month’s Culture magazine – visit www.journallive.co.uk/culture) who lives near Rothbury but teaches at Manchester University.
The piece, based on poems by Carol Ann Duffy, the new Poet Laureate, was commissioned by The Sage Gateshead.
For tickets to the Dreams and Ceremonies concerts, tel (0191) 443 4661. If you buy a ticket to three of the concerts you can get a complementary ticket for the fourth.
