A vivid account of Szymanowski’s hardly ever carried out Harnasie from the LPO, with a visible set up from Wayne McGregor & Ben Cullen Williams that by no means fairly matched the terrific music

We started with Tania León’s Raíces (Origins). Leon is the LPO’s present composer in residence, and the brand new work has as its title the Spanish phrase Raíces which implies origins or roots, these in query being partly Leon’s personal as she is Cuban with a mixture of Spanish, Cuban, Chinese language and French in her heritage.

It’s a large-scale work for an enormous orchestra that started with strings enjoying excessive and with harmonics, presenting us with tantalising fragments of fabric. Brief rhythmic phrases developed right into a fairly Copland-esque really feel, and there was a way of the fabric by no means fairly settling down. There have been up-tempo sections the place the music was imbued with a way of dance and moments of stasis, however regardless of modifications of timbre and texture, the environment of the piece remained one among stressed expectation. Although the longed for climax, the synthesis of all these tantalising fragments of melody, by no means fairly got here.

Following this we had Ravel’s choreographic poem, La valse which dates from simply earlier than Szymanowski began work on Harnasie. Gardner’s strategy to La valse was extra particular and fairly much less ‘haunted ballroom’ than some. It started at fairly a speedy tempo, the bass heartbeat resulting in one thing fairly sinister. There was a way of readability and definition to this efficiency, every thing was vivid and nothing was nebulous. When the strings first got here in, it was extra Vienna on acid than the waltz-king, creating right into a nervy and unnerving efficiency, the place the impetus to maintain going was immense. The climax was intense and stylised resulting in virtuoso, quasi-orgasm on the finish.

Szymanowski’s Harnasie has a state of affairs, a few girl about to get married however falling in love with a robber, Harnas, who in the end abducts her. However the composer was evidently not that bothered about strictness within the story-telling, and the strategy at this efficiency was utterly summary. Ben Cullen Williams’ set up functioned partly as display, for the projection of movie, and partly as sculpture. The projections continued while the sculpture was in movement, thus rendering the visible picture fragmented and fractured. The visible pictures started with AI generated dance, intercut with pictures from the Tatra mountains however steadily because the piece developed the visible part grew to become extra summary, with dance dropping away. The AI generated dance pictures appeared an pointless complication, visually they regarded too anime-like and regardless of the usage of AI there appeared little coordination between music and motion. The entire was intriguing and disturbing, not essentially a complement to Szymanowski’s music.

Fortunately the efficiency from Gardner and the LPO was vivid sufficient to face by itself. Harnasie is a fancy, symphonic work fairly than a naïve, descriptive pantomime, and no matter unique story there was has been subsumed in Szymanowski’s musical inspirations. Simply as we’d hardly ever these days choreograph Bartok’s ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, so Harnasie appears to operate with out dance. The people affect on the music was clear, however overlaid with complicated rhythms and textures; Bartok dosed with Stravinsky, however creating one thing all of its personal. It was a terrific sound world of colors and textures, the music balancing between lush romanticism and extra pointed parts, which maybe is a metaphor for Szymanowski’s late interval.

The contributions from tenor Robert Murray (positioned behind the choir stalls) had been splendidly vivid certainly, and complemented by the terrific contributions from the choir. Solely in direction of the tip did you’re feeling that there was a dramatic narrative within the music, a lot of the time it felt like a symphonic exploration of this materials. The ending, with an intense choral climax and all hell breaking free, adopted by fragmentary orchestra contributions and an extended tenor solo, was intriguing and placing.

Wayne McGregor & Ben Cullen Williams: A Physique For Harnasie – London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner – Royal Competition Corridor (Picture: Mark Allan)

Gardner and the LPO gave a terrific efficiency of the work, bringing actual depth to Szymanowski’s someday edgy type and depth to the sound-world. They hardly wanted the visuals, however the viewers appeared noticeably totally different to the common one, so if the occasion tempted extra individuals into experiencing Harnasie then all the higher.