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Passion & Resurrection

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Britten Sinfonia/Layton at Trinity College, Cambridge
The Times  April 12, 2010 
Richard Morrison

What has come out of the Baltic states in recent decades — reams of lush, well-crafted, listener-friendly choral music — has been remarkable not only for what it is, but for what it shows. It’s evidence that the great choirs of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are thriving, of course: but also that spirituality is, too. These are cultures in which Christianity is still a primary fount of creative energy. That’s rather different from Britain where, with some famous exceptions, leading composers (and their audiences) veer towards the agnostic or atheist.

So to British ears the most striking aspect of Eriks Esenvalds’s 30-minute Passion and Resurrection, for choir and small orchestra, is likely to be how direct and literal it is. Though it tells the Holy Week story from the anguished viewpoint of Mary Magdalene (a stratospheric soprano role, gamely tackled here by Carolyn Sampson), in essence it’s the straightforward biblical narrative, bereft of modern nuances. Even the music, quoting a motet by the Renaissance composer Morales and utilising Eastern vocal inflections, glissandos and folk-like fiddle obbligatos, seems rooted in eras when religious faith was simpler and surer.

That was the main work in this showcase for the 33-year-old Latvian. But shorter pieces, including a Mother Teresa tribute called Piliens Okeana (A Drop in the Ocean) and a gorgeous choral love song called Long Road, seemed spun from the same cloth. Esenvalds loves to send sopranos into orbit over deep harmonies enriched with added ninths or spiced with soft bitonality. When the polyphony rises to one of his ecstatic climaxes, the web is thickened by octave doublings. Hushed moments, meanwhile, are enhanced by tinkles of bells or gentle whistling.

In style and devotional aura it’s quite close to James MacMillan or John Taverner. But as yet Esenvalds lacks the former’s dramatic thrust or the latter’s hypnotic use of cyclical forms. I wasn’t always gripped. Still, he’s clearly the next big thing in musical mysticism, and he found superb champions here in Stephen Layton’s virtuoso choir Polyphony and the Britten Sinfonia. If you want to hear for yourself, they are recording these pieces for Hyperion.

Britten Sinfonia flings itself wholeheartedly into its enthusiasms. 
Rating: * * *
 
By Ivan Hewett
09 Apr 2010

Britten Sinfonia/Trinity College Chapel /Cambridge

One of the endearing things about the Britten Sinfonia is the way it flings itself so wholeheartedly into its enthusiasms. At the beginning of the year the orchestra was so enamoured of young New York composer Nico Muhly that he seemed to be as much of a fixture in its schedules as the orchestra’s own players.

Their latest discovery is the 30-something Latvian composer ?riks Ešenvalds. He’s not exactly a household name, so the cautious thing would have been to slip one or two of his rapturous sacred choral works in amongst some better-known things. But no - the Britten Sinfonia, in collaboration with the choir Polyphony, performed no less than six of his works, including the half-hour Passion and Resurrection for choir and string orchestra.

Did Esenvalds deserve this massive vote of confidence? Yes, if the test is an impressively intense expression of a rapt spirituality, done with an absolutely sure grasp of the choral medium. I expected an anxious, deracinated blend of modal expressivity and modernist ’textural’ music typical of many composers of the Baltic states, such as Erkki-Sven Tüür. In fact the style was often surprisingly British, somewhere between John Rutter and James Macmillan - with the odd ’Eastern’ melisma à la John Tavener If the test is whether the music holds up as music, I’m not so sure.

As with many latter-day spiritual composers, Ešenvald's spirituality can seem perfervid and airless compared to older sacred music. The religious music of Bach - to take one example - shades inperceptibly in style into his dance and keyboard music, so the sacred and the human mingle with each other. Whereas Ešenvald's Passion was locked tight in a box marked ’sacred only’. There was lots of heavy symbolism - agonisingly chromatic chords straining upwards, and extensive quotation from Spanish Renaissance music blurred by conflicting chords in the strings.

The piece ran to only 30 minutes, but frankly it felt longer. More affecting were the shorter, purely choral pieces on more broadly spiritual themes. Long Road, a setting of a poem reflecting on loss, dissolved beautifully at the end into harmonic vapour, with sounds of ocarinas like nocturnal birds. Like all the choral music it was sung with radiant beauty of tone by Polyphony. The most spiritual music of the evening for me came in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, played with angelic sweetness and airy grace by Thomas Gould and Miranda Dale.

Cambridgetab.co.uk
Review: Britten Sinfonia & Polyphony
by Joe Conway
on 9th April 2010
 
Carolyn Sampson - star soprano
8th April 8pm at Trinity College Chapel. £29/£24/£7

Eriks Esenvalds clearly felt like a million dollars at the end of Thursday's performance of his oratorio Passion and Resurrection. This half-hour long, multi-textured vocal, choral and orchestral work made a stunning impression at Trinity College Chapel, and as the 33-year-old Latvian composer acknowledged the prolonged applause he was visibly moved – and no wonder.

The performance was a collaborative effort involving the strings of the Britten Sinfonia, the mixed choir Polyphony, and the soprano Carolyn Sampson, under the authoritative direction of Stephen Layton. And the adventurous programming reflected credit on everyone involved – not least the capacity audience who turned out to hear a concert of largely unfamiliar 21st Century music.

Eriks' take on the searing events of the first Easter ends with music that is as moving as it is unforgettable, even on a first hearing. A minimalistic riff of two alternating chords, with the choir singing just one word – Mariam. This invocation isn't addressed to Jesus' mother however, but to Mary Magdalene who, in this collection of Biblical and traditional texts, not only offers but receives comfort.

Carolyn Sampson brought a vivid stage presence to the role of Mary – intimate and sympathetic, yet dramatic too. Her first appearance overlapped with a slow psalm-like introduction sung quite beautifully by an all-male vocal quartet drawn from the choir's ranks. Later orchestra and choir added their own separate musical commentary to the ongoing drama, each of these elements having its own material, which nevertheless blended brilliantly with the others.

This simultaneous deployment of widely different musics has been done in this kind of context before – notably by Benjamin Britten in his War Requiem and by Andrew Lloyd Webber in his Requiem. But Eriks Esenvalds' piece perhaps goes further in successfully integrating operatic, liturgical, choral and orchestral styles.

There were many memorable moments. Few people in the audience are likely to forget the unnerving shrieks of 'Crucify!' or the response 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Another highlight was Mary's reference to the Last Supper, beautifully introduced by the orchestral violas. (Shades of The Da Vinci Code perhaps!). Throughout the whole work Carolyn's vocal line was supported by gloriously mellow, vibrant singing from Polyphony who, on this showing, must be one of the most accomplished choral groups around.

Earlier the choir had sung no less than five other works by this talented but little known composer. The first of them was called Vakars, and established immediately that, despite its unfamiliarity, the music was easy to relate to as it employs a fairly traditional language. Admittedly in Piliens Okeana there were a few nods in the direction of once-fashionable avant-garde gimmicks. But actually the whistling, whispering and chanting in Erik's piece were not only imaginative but essential in suggesting eerily storm-tossed seas.

To complement Eriks Esenvalds' choral pieces the Britten Sinfonia had began the programme with one of the best known instrumental works by Arvo Part, the Estonian composer who spear-headed the Spiritual Minimalist group to which Eriks evidently belongs. Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten is a static 6-minute long piece which bathes its audience in the healing power of traditional tonality and luxuriant string chords. Unusually, it reaches its thrilling climax with the players' lowest notes. An undoubted contemporary classic, it received a gorgeous performance directed from the first violin desk by Jacqueline Shave. Mmmm . . . the fading chime that ends the piece has got to be one of the best and most memorable effects in late 20th century music. And yet it's all so simple . . .

And if only the concert had stayed with this homogeneous repertoire I think everyone would have gone away happy and I could have been wholly positive in this review. But alas the remaining work on the programme turned out to be problematic. Bach's Double Violin Concerto is one of the most sublime works ever penned. But what was this piece written in 1723 doing in the middle of a concert of contemporary spiritual music?

Okay, juxtapositions of works from different eras can be worthwhile and illuminating. But only if they are played with equal conviction and commitment. But whereas the works by Esenvalds and Part were performed with unhurried dignity and respect, the Bach concerto was rushed through in a way that bordered on the absurd.

I mean if you've opened a rare bottle of St Emilion you savour the sensation. The quality is so good that you don't want the experience to end. You don't down it in one like a tequila slammer! And it wasn't only speed that spoiled this performance, but a strange discrepancy between Thomas Gould's intricate phrasing and rubato and Miranda Dale's much straighter approach. I always thought the two violins were meant to speak with one voice and and duplicate each other's phrasing and other mannerisms. But maybe the players know something I don't.

On an overgrown path blog
All is not lost

Cristóbal de Morales plainsong Parce mihi, Domine from his Officium defunctorum provides the opening for young Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds' Passion and Resurrection and the unfolding story of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is told using texts drawn from the Holy Scriptures and the liturgies of the Catholic and Byzantine churches. I was at Friday night's Norwich performance of Passion and Resurrection by the Britten Sinfonia, Polyphony and soprano Carolyn Sampson conducted by Stephen Layton, every one of them musicans at the top of their game. Rarely before have I sat in a concert hall and heard a new work that sounded so fresh yet so familiar. Passion and Resurrection is familiar not because it is derivate, in fact far from it - Ēriks Ešenvalds teachers include Michael Finnissy and Jonathan Harvey. It is familiar because it sounds so right. Music written from the heart as opposed to written to catch the prevailing wind of stylistic fashion will always sound right. And Ēriks Ešenvalds writes from the heart.

Back in 2006 I asked the question what exactly is a classic? Paths converge here as my question was prompted by Arvo Pärt's Passio, which tells the Passion story from St John's Gospel. Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten was the opening work for the Norwich concert, and in a typically nuanced Britten Sinfonia programme J.S. Bach, the greatest Passion setter of them all, was the third composer of the evening. It is a telling measure of Ēriks Ešenvalds' music that it sat so comfortably alongside that of Arvo Pärt and J.S. Bach. In my post on Arvo Pärt's Passio I suggested that a classic composition is one that receives regular performances. By that criteria, or by any other, Ēriks Ešenvalds Passion and Resurrection is surely set to become a classic, a position Hyperion's forthcoming CD release of the work should consolidate.

Reader David Cavlovic added a comment to my recent post about BBC Radio 3 introducing classical charts which said "It’s the decline of the West as we know it". David may have had his tongue in his cheek when he posted that comment but I know exactly what he means. Turn on the radio or television, pick up a newspaper, look at the release schedules of the major labels or encounter the serial between the movements clapper we had to endure in Friday's concert and it is difficult not to conclude that we are indeed entering a cultural Dark Age.

In this new Dark Age marketing alchemists are hell bent on turning all challenging art into accessible entertainment and in the process destroying the very thing they are claiming to protect. But in the Dark Ages the monastic orders protected the flame of Western civilisation so that it could blaze again in the Enlightenment. And today the committed few such as Ēriks Ešenvalds, Stephen Layton and Polyphony, the Britten Sinfonia and Hyperion are keeping challenging art alive so that it can blaze once again in more propitious times. All is not lost.

Parce mihi Domine, nihil enim sunt dies mei
Quid est homo, quia magnificas eum?

Spare me, O Lord, for my days are nothing
What is a man that thou shouldst magnify him?

* If you have not already made the connection between my two images and Cristóbal de Morales' Parce mihi Domine I will give you a few more lines to come up with the answer. For a 'straight' take on the plainsong turn to John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir's Pilgrimage to Santiago CD. But Parce mihi Domine will be familiar to many readers from the opening track of ECM's Officium CD where the voices of the Hilliard Ensemble are joined by Jan Garbarek's saxophone. My header image is Roberto Masotti's photo from the cover of the ECM CD while the second photo is by Jim Bengston from the same album.

* The question as to whether Officium is challenging art or accessible entertainment had an outing here some years ago. In my book Manfred Eicher's experiment in Renaissance fusion is a classic because it has stood the test of time.

* I was going to ask Ēriks Ešenvalds in our pre-concert talk if he knew Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble's take on Morales, but I decided against it in case he did not know the recording. I need not have worried: after the talk, which Ēriks handled like a 33 year old pro, I mentioned the ECM disc and he knew it well. And talking of the Roman rite it is confession time. Parce mihi Domine at the start of Passion and Resurrection did sound strange without the saxophone.

* More on Ēriks Ešenvalds' Passion and Resurrection here.

* Is another criteria of a 'classic' music that is pirated?