Note the date. Looking west towards Heathrow, London’s skies were empty: no planes, no vapour trails. Thanks to the emissions from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull, London’s bird population had the skies to themselves. I hope they appreciated it. Across London gigs were being hastily cancelled and rescheduled, but thankfully this Ether festival performance went ahead, including a European premiere of Phlilip Glass’s Violin Concerto No.2, and a revival of one of the most significant pieces of classical music of recent years: Gorecki’s Symphony No.3.
Given that this was the Ether festival (lest we forget: an “annual music festival of innovation, art, technology and cross-arts experimentation”), the inclusion of a new piece by Philip Glass, the influential minimalist composer, made a lot of sense. However within seconds I was doubting its place in the programme, when the lead violinist began to play some exuberant arpeggios. Those sections were consumed by the swelling orchestra, who then faded out, and the lead violinist began to play some exuberant arpeggios, which were consumed by the swelling orchestra, who then faded out…in fact the unrelenting repetitiveness was the most interesting thing about it. Other than the performance – entirely from memory – of lead violinist Robert McDuffie that is. It did go on for a bit: I’ve never seen so many people jerk themselves awake to give a standing ovation before. McDuffie at least deserved it.
The performance tonight was supposed to be of Gorecki’s Symphony No.4, but due to his ill health it wasn’t finished in time. Damn. What could they offer in its place? Well, only one of the most popular classical works of the last couple of decades, his emotional Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Its influence on modern composers like Johann Johannsson goes without saying, but seeing this live for the first time was wonderful; in particular the way that the opening movement swept from a single double bass, to all the double basses, to double basses and cellos, to all the above plus violins, and then all of these plus a vocalist, and then back again. The Polish soprano Joanna Woś provided a powerful centre to the piece, with extra weight added by the dedication to the victims of last week’s Polish plane crash. Despite the large number of musicians involved, this is actually a very quiet piece. I came very close to doing a Keith Jarrett on a number of occasions – the temptation to rip out some piano wire to strangle some of the coughers and splutterers in the audience was immense. At the end of each movement there was a near-volcanic eruption of phlegm as people cleared their throats. It was actually quite absurd; if people were that ill, they should have stayed at home. Lord knows how they managed to make it through the minute’s silence at the end without disgracing themselves.
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