THOMAS ADÈS AT 50: REPRESENTATIONS ON THE STAGE AND ON THE PAGE

Edward Venn

doi:10.1017/s0040298221000358

THOMAS ADÈS AT 50: REPRESENTATIONS ON THE STAGE AND ON THE PAGE

Tempo ◽

10.1017/s0040298221000358 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 75 (298) ◽

pp. 6-9

Author(s):

Edward Venn

Keyword(s):

Symphony Orchestra ◽

International Profile ◽

Sixth Decade ◽

A Performance

On the evidence of the last year alone, Thomas Adès's international profile, as well as his productivity, remains undiminished as he enters his sixth decade. In a concert on 6 March 2021 to mark his fiftieth birthday, he conducted Kirill Gerstein and the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his In Seven Days and Sibelius's Sixth Symphony. Because lockdown restrictions in response to Covid-19 were still in force, the celebratory nature of the concert was necessarily muted – given behind closed doors, the players distanced – and only later uploaded to YouTube.

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Russolo, Luigi (1885–1947)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism ◽

10.4324/9781135000356-rem1745-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Adrian Curtin

Keyword(s):

Symphony Orchestra ◽

Aesthetic Value ◽

Modern City ◽

Performance Context ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Invented Instruments ◽

A Performance

Luigi Russolo (b. Portogruaro, 1885–1947) was a painter, inventor, and musician. He was an Italian Futurist who responded to Filippo Marinetti’s call to revolutionize art and embrace the dynamism and affective power of modernity. Russolo, following Francesco Pratella, developed futurist music by working to transform worldly noise and make it musically meaningful. In his 1913 manifesto L’arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises), Russolo argued that the sounds offered by a symphony orchestra were a poor match for the acoustic force and timbral complexities of a modern city. He proposed to transform noise using newly invented instruments, aestheticizing and spiritualizing it in the process. Russolo devised a system of enharmonic notation, and, with the help of the painter Ugo Piatti, constructed the intonarumori (noise intoners) that were to constitute the new futurist orchestra. Russolo intended audiences to recognize the aesthetic value of noise when specially composed and presented in a performance context. Alas, audiences, on the whole, seem to have been more nonplussed than impressed with Russolo’s music; they frequently made competing noise of their own.

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RECONCILING OPPOSING FORCES: THE YOUNG JAMES MACMILLAN – A PERFORMANCE HISTORY

Tempo ◽

10.1017/s0040298211000258 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 65 (257) ◽

pp. 40-51

Author(s):

James Telford

Keyword(s):

Chamber Orchestra ◽

Symphony Orchestra ◽

Performance History ◽

Musical Institutions ◽

A Performance

James MacMillan was 50 years old on 16 July 2009 and his birthday was celebrated by musical institutions not just in Britain, but internationally. As a composer and conductor in residence for the BBC Philharmonic he led performances of his Symphony No.3: Silence and The World's Ransoming. The Royal Northern College of Music staged a three-day celebration of his work while The Sixteen toured his music under conductor Harry Christophers. His recent St John Passion was performed in Berlin and Amsterdam by the London Symphony Orchestra and in Rotterdam concerts of his music were given by the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra and the Hilliard Ensemble. The widespread regard for MacMillan's music evidenced by these performances is the culmination of a steady rise in popularity, undisputedly catalyzed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra première of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie. In a 1993 Tempo article on MacMillan, music critic Stephen Johnson describes the premiere thus: ‘there have been warm receptions for other new works at Promenade Concerts, but the thunderous, ecstatic welcome given to James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the 1990 Proms was unprecedented’.

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Guerra-Peixe’s Symphony No. 2 Brasília (Part 1)

Per Musi ◽

10.35699/2317-6377.2018.5242 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Marcelo Ramos de Souza

Keyword(s):

Symphony Orchestra ◽

Performance Edition ◽

Radio Station ◽

Ministry Of Education ◽

Brazilian Music ◽

The Us ◽

Mixed Choir ◽

A Performance

This article investigates the historical circunstances that led to the composition of Symphony No. 2 Brasília, by César Guerra-Peixe, written for symphony orchestra, mixed choir and an optional narrator. The piece was originally composed for a competition organized by the Radio Station of Ministry of Education in 1960 to celebrate the inauguration of the new Brazilian capitol, originating substantial controversy, hence the first prize was not awarded and a tie was registered between three candidates in second place: Guerra-Peixe, Guerra-Vicente, and Claudio Santoro – all of them became renowned composers of Brazilian music. The Symphony Brasília by Guerra-Peixe was subject of my doctoral project in three principal fronts: production of a performance edition of the full score and parts; performance of the work in the US and Brazil, aiming to correct eventual mistakes and spread the music; and a production of historical and analytical texts.

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Boston: Saariaho's ‘Circle Map’

Tempo ◽

10.1017/s0040298213000144 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 67 (264) ◽

pp. 74-75

Author(s):

Rodney Lister

Keyword(s):

Symphony Orchestra ◽

Circle Map ◽

Performance Space ◽

A Performance

When the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra wanted to commission Kaija Saariaho for a work to perform at the Westergasfabriek Gashoulder, a gasholder building restored as a performance space, it did so through a consortium including the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony. The Boston Symphony, conducted by Juanjo Mena, gave the first American performance of the work, entitled Circle Map, in Symphony Hall in November.

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