BBCSSO (live stream), 31/03/2022

Debussy : Marche écossaise

Henderickx : Clarinet Concerto "Sutra" (Annelien van Wauwe, bass clarinet) World premiere

Chausson : Poème de l'amour et de la mer (Dame Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano)

Debussy : La mer

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Martyn Brabbins

Debussy's Marche écossaise was originally written for piano four-hands, with the orchestral version created some fifteen years later.  In those years Debussy's orchestral handling evolved considerably, and it's evident in the subtleties of the scoring, which were nicely brought out by Brabbins and the orchestra in this rarely heard piece.

Wim Henderickx is a contemporary Belgian composer, whose music frequently exploits non-Western sources for inspiration, as well as Asian philosophies.  Belgian clarinettist Annelien van Wauwe is a self-professed yoga fanatic, so when she approached Henderickx for a new concerto, the notion that it should be based on, and inspired by yoga and its philosophy was a clear path for them both.  Less obvious, at least at first, according to Henderickx, was the choice of the basset clarinet (the instrument for which Mozart wrote his Concerto and Quintet), but Van Wauwe persuaded him, and like Mozart, Henderickx particularly appreciated the extended lower register of the instrument.  What emerged was a four movement concerto for basset clarinet, electronics and orchestra.

The electronics were a kind of subtle ambient sound, almost like a faint echo of the natural reverberation of the orchestral instruments.  There were many unusual effects, notably at the very start of the first movement, titled "Pranayama", or "Breath of Life", and, effectively, it was breathing we were hearing, from the electronics, from very quiet percussion, and from the brass players blowing into their instruments without actually creating a note.  The other main 'effect' was that both soloist and orchestra members regularly broke into chant, repeating a yogic mantra.  Van Wauwe usually sang hers, quietly and simply, while the orchestra tended to sub-vocalise, very discreet whispers that were almost inaudible.  

The clarinet solo part did use the low register extensively, in a kind of warm burble, which was nice enough to listen to, but went on a little too continuously.  In fact, the change from first to second movement really wasn't at all obvious.  The third movement is more energetic, but the strongest one was the last, more explicitly lyrical and serene, with a lovely solo part for viola.  Had it not been for that last movement, the concerto as a whole would not have spoken much to me, but that was worth the voyage.  

I'm more accustomed to hearing Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer sung by a soprano, but brighter voiced mezzos can and do also sing it, and the darker timbre comes into its own in the last song,  describing the death throes of a relationship.  Apart from a little over-emphasis at the start of "La mort de l'amour", which came across as a touch too operatic for the context - despite the opulent orchestration, these are still songs, not arias - Sarah Connolly's delivery was eloquent and expressive, and there was some beautiful hairpin control, the voice fading delicately away into a pregnant silence.  

The Wagner-inspired lushness of orchestral writing was something that Chausson shared with the young Debussy, in the last decades of the 19th Century.  By the time of La mer, which was completed in 1905, Debussy had definitively thrown off that influence, to produce arguably his greatest orchestral score, as close as he ever got to writing a symphony.  The central movement lost a little of the tension of the piece, but Brabbins brought it all to a satisfactorily ringing climax.

[Next : 14th April]