SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

 PROM 10 Takemitsu, Debussy/Caplet, Ravel, Sarasate, Hosokawa: Akiko Suwanai (violin); Mayumi Miyata (shō); Orchestre de Lyon/Jun Märkl. Royal Albert Hall, Friday, 24.7.2009 (CC)

Takemitsu Ceremonial: An Autumn Ode
Debussy (orch. Caplet) Estampes – Pagodes.
Ravel Rapsodie espagnole

Interval

Takemitsu Green (November Steps 2)
Sarasate Concert Fantasy on Themes from “Carmen”
Ravel Tzigane

Interval

Hosokawa Cloud and Light
Debussy La mer


As was the case with the First Night this year, there were two intervals in this concert (leading to another late finishing time). But unlike the First Night, the division on this occasion made some sort of sense. As did the overall programming, which was impressively and intelligently thought through.

The link between French orientalisme and the music of the Orient per se, and between French music and other, more nearby musics, provided the crux of the thought-process behind the music we heard. These are symbiotic processes, as far as direction of influence is concerned. The Orient influenced the music of Debussy; the Spanish world saturates Ravel’s Rapsodie; the West influenced Hosokawa (Berlin-educated by a Korean composer who had himself studied in Japan and dividing his time between Hiroshima, Mainz and Karuizawa) and, of course, Takemitsu.

Interestingly, the conductor, Jun Märkl, is ideally placed to conduct this programme as he enjoys a long-standing connection with Japan (he is born of a German father and Japanese mother). He has been associated with the Lyon orchestra for some time now.

First was Takemitsu’s Ceremonial: An Autumn Ode of 1992, a piece that features the shō. A word or two is perhaps necessary to introduce this instrument. The shō is often thought of as a Japanese mouth organ, but that only gives the merest hint, really. The soloist on this occasion, Mayumi Miyata, memorably describes the sound of the instrument in the following manner: “One day I looked up at the sky and felt the sunshine coming down, and I realised I was listening to the sound of light - I discovered that this is the sound of the shō”. The instrument has 17 pipes, each with a copper reed. Each pipe has five finger holes. The shō’s realm is traditionally that of Gagaku (traditional Japanese Imperial Court music). Takemitsu has the shō entering quietly, completely solo, a kind of ethereal, tiny organ (incidentally, the microphones on the BBC broadcast seem to zoom in on the instrument, making it too present – heard in the hall, the effect was much more atmospheric). The sound might be described as a cross between and organ and a harmonica, but that is probably to do it a disservice in simplifying it so. Its main trait is that it is icily beautiful. All this intimacy posed a problem for the audience, and there was quite a lot of extraneous noise (perhaps the reason for the close-miking?). The orchestra, when it enters, is characteristic Takemitsu in its post-Debussy world. An intelligent use of the Albert Hall’s space (wind players at exits around the amphitheatre) gave a sense of depth. One could clearly hear the Messiaen influence in Takemitsu’s chord structures and of Debussy in some of the melodic shapes, but the individuality of expression was never in doubt. Neither was Miyata’s extraordinary control of her instrument.

The André Caplet (1878-1925) orchestration of “Pagodes” from the piano suite Estampes (1903) was made in 1923. Pentatonicism meets layering in the manner of Javanese music here, but Caplet’s orchestration seemed too luxurious, sleepy even. Here was a gentle cushion of sound that was too rooted in the fields of France. Märkl’s reading was intelligent but it was all a bit lethargic. I felt like having a good stretch afterwards.

Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole begins with the highly evocative “Prélude à la nuit”, its repetitive four-note motif here exquisitely controlled. The Lyon strings possess sterling pianissimo. Märkls’ ear for timbral detail was clearly on display in the “Malagueña”; the Carmen connection in “Habanera” was wonderfully rendered, Bizet as if through a veil.

The format of the concert was to have a Japanese composer begin each of its three parts, and so it was that Takemitsu’s Green (November Steps 2) of 1967 began the second part. Takemitsu’s gentle sonorities did not sound as settled as in the earlier piece. Darker undercurrents later on were well brought out. The influence of Boulez is here, too, in the percussion “breaks”. Orchestrally, the horns sounded rather weak and some brass tuning sounded suspect.

The contrast of Takemitsu’s concentrated world and the virtuoso showcase that is Sarasate’s Concert Fantasy on Themes from “Carmen” (1883) is stark. The featured violinist, Akiko Suwanai, is no stranger to this piece, having recorded it for Philips (in a memorable coupling with the Dvořák Violin Concerto and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen). The bright orchestral light was the equivalent of coming out into midday Mediterranean sunshine. Suwanai, playing on the “Dolphin” Stradivarius of 1714 (once owned by Heifetz) found real fireworks here. Her technique seems boundless. She even found convincing contrastive darkness in the central slow section. A spotlight illuminated Suwanai for the solo introduction to the Ravel (the lights came up more on the orchestra’s entrance). The performance was perhaps not quite the equal of the Sarasate, with some tuning problems from Suwanai.

So, to the Japanese piece that opened the final section of the Prom, the UK Premiere of Cloud and Light (2008) by Toshio Hosokawa. It brought with it the welcome return to the platform of Mayumi Miyata. Hosokawa plays with the similarity of the sounds of high string harmonics and the shō in his Buddhist-inspired work (the actual inspiration is the idea of the Buddha descending to earth on a cloud, accompanied by musicians). The idea of the shifting mass of clouds is the generating force for Hosokawa’s musical processes. The piece’s opening was ultra-delicate; instruments like the fūrin (small Japanese windbells) add flecks of light. The shō is asked to play louder than we had heard so far, apt in a piece which features an orchestral depiction of a storm (lovely and black-coloured).

For more Hosokawa, David Gutman’s Proms “Further Listening” encourages us to seek out an intriguing coupling of Hosokawa’s Deep Silence and Gagaku music (Wergo WER6801-2), to which I would add an equally intriguing disc of Japanese accordion music (which includes two works by Hosokawa) played by Mie Miki on BIS.

Finally, Debussy’s La mer. Märkl and his orchestra have recently made a fine recording of this piece on Naxos (8.570775; see also another of their Debussy Naxos recordings, reviewed on this site here). The performance came at the end of a long Prom, and I have to say I was more impressed by the recording when I heard it than by this live account. Clarity was excellent, and phrases were beautifully shaped, but there was a loss of tonal depth in the first part (“De l’aube à midi sur la mer”). Drama was underplayed, also, in the final “Dialogue du vent et de la mer”, something the well-balanced climactic brass chords could not compensate fully for.

Colin Clarke