Tickets:
£5
Free to ticket-holders for the evening concert, but please book in advance
Leading Messiaen scholar Christopher Dingle (Professor of Music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) joins musicians from Ensemble 360 for this roundtable discussion exploring one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century: Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.
Tickets:
£23
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
KLEIN String Trio (12’)
SMIT Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano (12’)
MESSIAEN Quartet for the End of Time (50’)
Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is the centrepiece of this concert showcasing music to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the internment, concentration and death camps of Europe. Considered one of the 20th century’s greatest works, Messiaen composed the Quartet while a prisoner of war in the Stalag VIII-A camp. As Steven Osborne writes, “the music seems to touch the far edges of human experience”. Also featured in the programme is Gideon Klien’s folk-infused String Trio, composed just ten days before Klien was transported from Terezín to Auschwitz, and Leo Smit’s lyrical and profoundly expressive Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano.
Messiaen Roundtable
Crucible Playhouse, 4.00pm
Tickets £5 / Free to all ticket holders for the evening concert,
but please book here in advance
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i. Allegro
ii. Lento
iii. Molto vivace
Gideon Klein was born in Moravia in 1919, and, like Zykmud Schul, he studied with Alois Hába at the Prague Conservatoire. In December 1941, along with thousands of other Prague Jews, he was deported to Terezín. It was thus in the environment of a prison camp that Klein reached maturity as a composer in his early twenties. In 1940 he had been awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, but was prevented from taking this up by the Nazis. He was also an extremely gifted pianist, and gave performances in Terezín of works such as Beethoven’s Sonata Op.111, Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces Op.11, and Janáček’s I.X.1905. The String Trio, finished in October 1944, was to be his last work. It’s a piece of great energy and assurance, and stylistically it’s a fascinating mixture of music inspired by Czech dance rhythms, but also by the more expressionist works of the Second Viennese School. Even by the traumatic standards of music written in Terezín, the circumstances in which Gideon Klein composed his String Trio are shocking: by October 1944, when he completed this piece, Klein had witnessed the death of Schul, and nine days after finishing the Trio, he, too, was transported to Auschwitz, along with Pavel Haas, and two other composers – Viktor Ullmann and Hans Krasa. Klein was subsequently moved to a coal-mining labour camp near Katowice. He died on 27 January 1945, but the precise circumstances of his death are uncertain: he either perished in the mining camp, or as one of many fellow-Jews who lost their lives on a brutal forced march made to accompany the fleeing SS.
Nigel Simeone © 2011
i. Allegretto
ii. Lento
iii. Allegro vivace
Leopold Smit (1900-1943), known as ‘Leo’, was a Dutch composer. Born in Amsterdam, Smit studied at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam before moving to Paris in 1927 where he was in close contact with the group of composers known as ‘Les Six’ – musicians including Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc who pioneered the ‘neoclassical’ style.
Smit moved back to Amsterdam in late 1937. In November 1942, he and his wife, Lientje, (both Jewish) were forced to move to the ‘Transvaal’ neighbourhood, a deportation district in the east of Amsterdam. In March 1943, they were summoned to the Jewish Theatre (today again known as Hollandsche Schouwburg and National Holocaust Memorial), then transported to Westerbork. By the end of April, the couple were transported to the Sobibor extermination camp where they were murdered upon arrival.
Smit’s musical output is small but compelling. He was clearly influenced by the composers in his milieux – his use of polytonality (writing in two or more keys simultaneously) was inspired by the music of Darius Milhaud, for example, while the Trio for flute, viola and harp borrows Debussy’s instrumentation. There are obvious influences of jazz and light music (foxtrot, Charleston and rumba), also; Smit was particularly fond of George Gershwin.
Smit’s most neoclassical piece is the Symphony in C. Jurjen Vis describes the work: “Mozartian themes are put through a bitonal wringer”. The Divertimento for piano four hands, although jazzier in character, likewise draws on Mozart – the piece was composed as a response to Smit’s continuous playing (with students) piano excerpts of Mozart Symphonies.
In the Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, broadly developed and sensuous melodies tend to prevail. Composed in 1938, it is written for the instrumentation famously deployed in Mozart’s ‘Kegelstatt’ trio (K. 498). The work is in three movements: an opening Allegretto begins with a stately melody in octaves, then in dialogue with mysterious and chromatically rich, often fragmentary tunes that capriciously change in mood from one moment to the next. The central movement – ‘Lento’ – begins slow and solemn. Piano chords undergird long, winding melodies on the violin and clarinet, before the music develops in harmonic and textural complexity. The final ‘Allegro vivace’ sees pizzicato violin matched by staccato clarinet notes as the interplay between the instruments of the trio grows in intensity, each vying for the foreground before the piece reaches its dramatic conclusion.
Liturgie de Crystal
Vocalise pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps
Abîme des oiseaux
Intermède
Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus
Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes
Fouillis d’arc-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps
Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus
Messiaen composed his Quartet for the End of Time during his captivity as a Prisoner of War at Stalag VIII-A in the autumn of 1940. With three fellow-prisoners to write for – a violinist, cellist and clarinetist – he began by composing a short movement for them to play without piano – the ‘Intermède’. Once the camp authorities had found Messiaen a piano, he set to work on a piece that explores the possibilities of the unusual ensemble in typically inventive ways, using the four instruments together on only a few occasions. The clarinet plays a long solo (‘Abîme des oiseaux’) while the cello and violin each have a slow movement with piano – the two ‘Louanges’, both of which Messiaen recycled from works he’d composed in the 1930s: the Fête des Belles Eaux for the 1937 Paris Exposition and the Diptypque for organ. The first performance of the Quartet took place on 15 January 1941 in one of the camp huts, to an audience of a few hundred prisoners. The audience was either entranced or baffled by what they heard on that extraordinary night. A review in the camp newspaper likened the occasion to the premiere of The Rite of Spring, noting that “it’s often a mark of a work’s greatness that it has provoked conflict on the occasion of its birth.”
Nigel Simeone © 2012
Tickets:
£23
£17 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
Music by Philip Glass, Meredith Monk and Moondog sits alongside works by JS Bach in this recital by Monegasque-Sri Lankan pianist, Shani Diluka. Described as “one of the greatest of her generation” (Piano Magazine), Diluka’s captivating performance connects across the centuries, from the energy of the American minimalists to Bach’s expressive and technically demanding solo keyboard works. Diluka was appointed to the prestigious French ‘Knighthood for Arts and Letters’, and performs regularly at concert venues including Philharmonie de Paris, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Vienna Konzerthaus.
JS BACH (arr. Siloti) Prelude in B minor (4′)
GLASS Études: No.2 (7′)
JS BACH Prelude No.1 in C BWV846 (3′)
CPE BACH Solfeggietto (1′)
JARRETT Wild Irish Rose (5′)
GLASS Études: No.9 (4′)
CAGE Dream (8′)
JS BACH Prelude No.12 in F minor BWV857 (3′)
EVANS Danny Boy (extract) (3′)
JS BACH (arr. Petri) Cantata ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ (5′)
GLASS Mad Rush (15′)
JS BACH (transc. Cortot) Aria BWV1056 (3′)
MOONDOG Canon VIII (2′)
JARRETT Be My Love (5′)
JS BACH (transc. Kempff) Sicilienne BWV1031 (4′)
MONK Rail Road (2′)
JARRETT I Loves You, Porgy (6′)
MOONDOG Barn Dance (2′)
JARRETT Shenandoah (6′)
GLASS ‘Opening’ from ‘Glassworks’ (7′)
JS BACH (arr. Marcello) Adagio from Oboe Concerto BWV974 (4′)
GLASS (arr. Diluka) Tyrol Concerto Mvt.2 (3′)
JS BACH Prelude in C minor from the ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ BWV847 (3′)
In conversation with Shani Diluka
Crucible Playhouse, 5.30pm – 6.15pm
Tickets £5 / Free to all ticket holders for the evening concert,
but please book here in advance
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In Howards End, E.M. Forster wrote that “it will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it.” For scholar Scott Burnham, writing in Beethoven Hero, the composer has “arguably been to music what Socrates was to ancient philosophy: his music is heard as a direct expression of human values.” Yet, if there’s one transition that’s notable in a twenty-first century classical music culture, where Beethoven was a previous generation’s unquestionable genius, another might be set to replace him. In 2019, BBC Music Magazine polled 174 composers for their favorite composer of all time. Bach came out on top.
Much as the porcelain busts, music festivals, and ample representation on concert programmes would lead us to believe, our musical heroes aren’t permanent, and are subject to constantly shifting forces. The fact that we know about Bach’s music at all is mostly thanks to Felix Mendelssohn, who revived Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 1829. (Because of his influential practice of historicism and revivalism—ideas that have fundamentally underpinned classical music culture ever since—there’s a fair argument to be made that Mendelssohn was the world’s most influential classical musician.)
By shining a light on the way these histories are invented and constructed is not to deny the quality of the music. If anything, by showing the workings of these histories—in peeking behind the curtain—these towering world-historical figures become altogether more approachable, and we’re better placed to find ourselves amid their sometimes impenetrable legacies.Shani Diluka’s programme is not just an attempt to make sense of her own relation to Bach, but also how composers of diverse traditions and lineages are drawn to different parts of his artistry. Diluka chairs a big musical discussion, shining light that reflects back and all around.
First comes a quartet of compositions all grouped around a single type of movement—the arpeggio, and its relation, the broken chord. Philip Glass is the modern-day king of the arpeggio; later in the programme, it’s hollowed out and hammered into shape in his Étude No. 9, but it first appears in a more incantory, scalic form in his Étude No. 2, creating something approaching the sound of Chopin. The kind of movement and atmosphere continues what’s been established in Alexander Siloti’s arrangement of Bach’s BMV855a; originally in E minor, Siloti transposes the piece down a fifth, darkens it, and adds pianistic flourishes that really enhance this romantic, watery version of Bach’s original. This section concludes with J.S. Bach’s son Charles Philipp Emanuel, and his Solfeggietto in C Minor, a fast, flourishing and popular toccata-style miniature, almost like a minor-key inversion of the Prelude in C Major by his father that precedes it.
Later in his career, Keith Jarrett made the decision to return to Bach, a formative influence, and commenced a series of recordings on the ECM label of works like the Goldberg Variations, the Sonatas for Violin and Piano, the French Suites and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Listening to My Wild Irish Rose, a song by Chauncey Olcott, and you’ll hear traces of that in the intricate contrapuntal underlay moving methodically under a serene, cantabile melody. That serenity continues in John Cage’s Dream, a gently hovering work originally used as music for a dance piece by Merce Cunningham.
Two short pieces on shape follow. Bach’s Prelude in F Minor slowly builds harmonic shapes through arpeggiated movement, while Bill Evans’ arrangement of Danny Boy starts with unusual shapes, appearing in single gestures with a confidence, before expanding rhythmically into intricate part-leading around the second verse’s climax.
From a pair of pieces on shape, to two pieces with a sense of procession. Mad Rush, a piece by Philip Glass originally for organ, was composed the Dalai Lama’s first public address in North America, in 1979 at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It’s made into an open score with multiple repeats to accommodate the leader’s entrance into the cathedral, and is quintessential Glass; almost all the material is made up of arpeggios of contrasting rhythm, whirring elliptically against one another. Though it comes from a cantata rather than a coronation, the slow-walk rhythms of Bach’s Sheep May Softly Graze give it a stately underlay. This version for solo was arranged by Egon Petri.
During the 1960s, New York’s musically curious would be hard-pressed to miss Moondog: a blind, counter-cultural guru-like figure, dressed like a fantasy Viking and tethered to Manhattan’s 6th Avenue and 53rd Street, here was a gifted composer with a lifelong ambition to realise his particular vision in music. Two pieces by Moondog—a canon in the manner of a Bach Two-Part invention, then Barn Dance—are heard here. The latter is reminiscent particularly of Glass, who let Moondog stay on his couch for a year in exchange for an idiosyncratic musical education; it’s said that Glass learned more from Moondog than he did at Juilliard. In between these Moondog excursions come three songs of sorts: a sweetly melodic Sicilienne by Bach, Jarrett’s take on Be My Love (made popular by Mario Lanza) and Railroad, a short, insistent piece by Meredith Monk subtitled Travel Song. Two more Jarrett arrangements, of I Loves You Porgy from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and the traditional American song Shenandoah.
The hollowed-out arpeggios from Étude No.9 returns in the opening of Glass’s Glassworks, a project in which the composer sought to create a more “Walkman-friendly” type of writing. This kind of movement also characterises the Tirol Concerto, between which comes a section of Bach’s Oboe Concerto in D Minor, an example of Bach’s resourcefulness as a musician: this reconstructs a section of Marcello’s Concerto for Oboe and Strings, and parts of his own cantata BMV35. Diluka concludes with a work that synthesises all these broken-chord visions: Bach’s tempestuous Prelude in C Minor.
Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
BACH Sonata No.3 in C (25’)
BACH Partita No.3 in E (20’)
Marvels of violin writing, Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas achieve the seemingly impossible: the solo violin is both melody and accompaniment, conjuring two, three or even four musical voices from a single instrument. Captivating to watch, the sonatas and partitas are equal parts spellbindingly expressive and technically demanding. This is music that demands virtuosic skill from its player. For this, the final in his series, Ensemble 360’s violinist Benjamin Nabarro will present Bach’s third Sonata and Partita. Inventive, profoundly imaginative, and demonstrating a mastery of the form unmatched in the 400 years since their composition, these are pieces that continue to dazzle and amaze.
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Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin were composed at Cöthen in 1720 (the date on Bach’s beautifully written fair copy of the set), at about the same time as his Cello Suites. The three Sonatas follow the pattern of the sonata da chiesa, with four movements, alternating slow and fast, while the three Partitas are suites of dances. Even though they were not published until 1802, Bach’s contemporaries recognized his superlative achievement in these pieces. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach wrote that his father ‘understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments. This is evidenced by his solos for the violin and violoncello without bass. One of the greatest violinists once told me that he had seen nothing more perfect for learning to be a good violinist.’ Which violinist Bach may have had in mind when he first wrote the pieces remains unknown.
© Nigel Simeone
Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
RADIGUE
Occam XXI (16’)
Occam River XVIII (15’)
Occam XVII (13’)
Occam River XVII (16’)
Occam (28’)
Occam River XV (15’)
Occam Delta XIV (17’)
In this special concert, Welsh harpist and improvisor Rhodri Davies, together with Angharad Davies (violin) and Dominic Lash (double bass), present a selection of works composed for them by Radigue. Ranging from solos to ensemble pieces, this is a rare opportunity to explore the singular aesthetic of one of the 21st century’s most important composers, performed by some of the musicians with whom she has most closely collaborated. Through extended instrumental techniques (the harp is played using two violin bows) and a close attention to timbre, Radigue conjures luminescent, intricately layered and richly textural soundscapes that slowly evolve.
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Part of: OCCAM OCEAN: THE MUSIC OF ÉLIANE RADIGUE
“Radigue writes awesomely gradual music that is always on the move… It is music that flowers in some enchanted hinterland where sounds are sparse and mercurial, spiritual and grounded, narrative and abstract… she is always on the hunt for sound within sound – a realm of partials, harmonics, and subharmonics… the intangible cloud that makes up that note’s aura.”
Kate Molleson
The French composer Éliane Radigue, now 93 years old, has dedicated the last quarter of a century to crafting her extraordinary, subtle and luminescent compositions for acoustic instruments. Each titled ‘Occam’ (after ‘Occam’s razor’, the idea that the simplest solution is often the best), these warm and generous works explore the essence of an instrument’s sound in gradually unfolding, richly present textures.
For ‘Occam Ocean’, Music in the Round has curated a series of special events bringing together some of Radigue’s closest collaborators for two days of music and talks, offering a rare, immersive experience of this composer’s singular sound world.
Presented in partnership with The University of Sheffield.
RADIGUE – Occam XXV (45′)
OCCAM XXI – Angharad Davies (16mins)
OCCAM RIVER XVIII – Rhodri Davies & Dominic Lash (15mins)
OCCAM XVII – Dominic Lash (13mins)
OCCAM RIVER XVII – Angharad Davies & Rhodri Davies (16mins)
OCCAM I – Rhodri Davies (28mins)
OCCAM RIVER XV – Angharad Davies & Dominic Lash (15mins)
OCCAM DELTA XIV – Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies & Dominic Lash (17mins)
The tenth piece in Claude Debussy’s first book of Préludes for piano is titled La cathédrale engloutie, the Sunken Cathedral. It’s a dreamy, pictorial piece, depicting a mythical Breton city swallowed by the ocean, a kind of Gallic Atlantis. What makes this short piece stick in the memory is not necessarily its vocabulary—of church bells, and watery organs—or its musical vernacular—borrowing pentatonic scales from Javanese gamelan—but its aura of sunkenness: it’s the dunking in a deep, quietly fizzing pool, in which everything moves in a new, collectively dislocated time.
Water, sound, and sunkenness are ideas that the celebrated French experimental composer Eliane Radigue has returned to time and again, especially in the post-millenium creative spurt of this now 93-year-old composer. Waves form the obvious meeting point between these ideas: “We live in a universe filled with waves”, Radigue said in an interview given during the construction of Occam XXV, her piece with Frédéric Blondy: from the tiniest microwaves, to the point where our ears perceive sound, and extending to wavelengths found in the ocean. “We also come into contact with [the ocean] physically, mentally and spiritually”, she added.
As well as working on a perceptual and sensual level, the link between sound and water also informs a key philosophical concept. Just as water flows seeking the path of least resistance, so the guiding mantra of Radigue’s constructions for instrumentalists—that of Occam’s Razor, the so-called parsimonious principle—is that the simplest route available is invariably the best. And so, the selection of pieces heard in this Radigue Weekend chart courses that, on paper, seem fairly simple: from deep to shallow, deep to high, broad to thin, dense to sparse, absent to present to absent again.
Where the challenge comes is in what Radigue calls the “virtuosity of speed”. It’s like Paganini, but in reverse: performers require “a virtuosity of absolute control of the instrument, an extreme, subtle and delicate kind of virtuosity” when performing music that’s achingly restrained. Kate Molleson, in her book Sound Within Sound—a title which itself references Radigue’s sonic burrowing—tells of performers, so engrossed in the progression of one of Radigue’s pieces, that they’ve ‘woken up’ mid-performance, unaware as to how much time has elapsed, where they are, or who has been watching.
Radigue’s music requires a certain virtuosity from the listener too: How to listen to music without event, in a musical space—and a digitised society—in which events are more abundant than ever? One key way into this unusual appreciative realm is by opening not just our ears to sound, but our bodies too. In 1974, Radigue visited her son in New York, and realised that she could no longer put a sound to the movement of her daughter-in-law’s lips. It turned out that she had lived almost fifty years with an unknown hearing impairment, something which she later realised had had a huge impact on how she sought out and shaped these slow-moving sounds. Sound, for Radigue, is something fundamentally bodily, as well as aural. And, when guiding newcomers in how to listen to Radigue, the writer Louise Gray channels Pauline Oliveros, pioneer of Deep Listening. In one of her exercises, Oliveros asks participants to “walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears”. Feel the sound, as much as you hear it.
Opening the weekend is Occam XXV, for organ, premiered by Blondy at Islington’s Union Chapel in 2018. These Occam works are organic forms from their conception. Radigue, who received no formal compositional training, prefers to work with performers individually and in person. Whatever seeds they come up with germinate, and are tended to by Radigue, the constant gardener. Though these works have no score, save for some pictorial guides, this is no free improvisation either. “The difference is that you are following the vision of another person”, trumpeter (and fellow “chevalier d’Occam”—knight of Occam) Nate Woolley writes. “The vision is very clear—the water, the razor, the idea that you never return, that you are always moving forward. These are things that Éliane shapes”.
Over the course of forty-five minutes, Occam XXV rumbles from the deepest reaches of the organ—from the bass sounds you feel more than hear—through to the shrillest edges of perceivable sound. To describe these pieces in reference to structural milestones is futile, though it’s amazing how much these small, quivering forms morph and contort amid a perception that nothing is moving. To listen to Occam XXV is to climb a steep, never-ending mountain facing forward, occasionally allowing yourself an about turn to marvel at just how far you’re come.
The following concert features a selection of works, mostly of around the same length, for violin, harp, and double bass, in various combinations, which continue this steadfast mode of work. All these works begin with thoughts of bodies of water, though the exact sources (and any representations) are kept hidden. In Occam XXI, written with violinist Angharad Davies, a line from Woyzeck springs to mind: “You’re running around like an open razor blade. You might cut someone”. Where other Occam works have a mellower quality, the various sheer overtones of the violin—coupled with the absence of a bass register—give XXI a feeling like stacked sheets of roughly cut glass: related, separate, dangerously sharp when in contact.
OCCAM XVII, with bassist Dominic Lash, features slower, less abrasive material, though these harmonic clouds blacken from their previous light grey shade. The Davies siblings join for River XVII, then split for the longest piece in this concert: the first Occam piece of the series, for solo harp, featuring the unusual technique of bowing the harp with both hands. Two bodies of water flow past each other occasionally meeting in the duo piece River XV, and Delta XIV concludes with the trio altogether. This final piece premiered in 2019; the Delta tributary series is now up to XXIII. For all their steady restraint, Radigue’s riverworks flow ever onwards, and might even be accelerating.
Hugh Morris, 2025
Tickets:
£5
Free to ticket-holders for the evening concerts on 17 & 18 October, but please book in advance
Musicians Rhodri Davies, Angharad Davies and Dominic Lash are joined by Louise Gray (writer on music and sound art for The Wire) and Julia Eckhardt (longtime Radigue collaborator and author of Éliane Radigue – Intermediary Spaces/Espaces intermédiaires) for this panel discussion exploring the unique practice and sound world of the pioneering French composer, Éliane Radigue.
Part of: OCCAM OCEAN: THE MUSIC OF ÉLIANE RADIGUE
“Radigue writes awesomely gradual music that is always on the move… It is music that flowers in some enchanted hinterland where sounds are sparse and mercurial, spiritual and grounded, narrative and abstract… she is always on the hunt for sound within sound – a realm of partials, harmonics, and subharmonics… the intangible cloud that makes up that note’s aura.”
Kate Molleson
The French composer Éliane Radigue, now 93 years old, has dedicated the last quarter of a century to crafting her extraordinary, subtle and luminescent compositions for acoustic instruments. Each titled ‘Occam’ (after ‘Occam’s razor’, the idea that the simplest solution is often the best), these warm and generous works explore the essence of an instrument’s sound in gradually unfolding, richly present textures.
For ‘Occam Ocean’, Music in the Round has curated a series of special events bringing together some of Radigue’s closest collaborators for two days of music and talks, offering a rare, immersive experience of this composer’s singular sound world.
Presented in partnership with The University of Sheffield.
Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
RADIGUE Occam XXV (45’)
Éliane Radigue’s ‘Occam XXV’ – written for, and performed here by, the French organist Frédéric Blondy – envelops its listener in a rich and slowly evolving ocean of sound. Beginning with a low, timbral rumble, the music grows over its 45 minutes, always imperceptibly changing, to a richly layered, shimmering and luxuriant texture which then, as the piece draws to a close, dissolves into air. This is music as sensation: sound to be immersed in – expansive and vibrational. As Radigue herself said, “I imagine how we are all bathing in a galactic ocean of sound waves”.
Save 20% when you book for 10 or more Music in the Round concerts in one transaction.
Save 10% when you book for 5 or more Music in the Round concerts in one transaction. Find out more.
Part of: OCCAM OCEAN: THE MUSIC OF ÉLIANE RADIGUE
“Radigue writes awesomely gradual music that is always on the move… It is music that flowers in some enchanted hinterland where sounds are sparse and mercurial, spiritual and grounded, narrative and abstract… she is always on the hunt for sound within sound – a realm of partials, harmonics, and subharmonics… the intangible cloud that makes up that note’s aura.”
Kate Molleson
The French composer Éliane Radigue, now 93 years old, has dedicated the last quarter of a century to crafting her extraordinary, subtle and luminescent compositions for acoustic instruments. Each titled ‘Occam’ (after ‘Occam’s razor’, the idea that the simplest solution is often the best), these warm and generous works explore the essence of an instrument’s sound in gradually unfolding, richly present textures.
For ‘Occam Ocean’, Music in the Round has curated a series of special events bringing together some of Radigue’s closest collaborators for two days of music and talks, offering a rare, immersive experience of this composer’s singular sound world.
Presented in partnership with The University of Sheffield.
RADIGUE – Occam XXV (45′)
OCCAM XXI – Angharad Davies (16mins)
OCCAM RIVER XVIII – Rhodri Davies & Dominic Lash (15mins)
OCCAM XVII – Dominic Lash (13mins)
OCCAM RIVER XVII – Angharad Davies & Rhodri Davies (16mins)
OCCAM I – Rhodri Davies (28mins)
OCCAM RIVER XV – Angharad Davies & Dominic Lash (15mins)
OCCAM DELTA XIV – Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies & Dominic Lash (17mins)
The tenth piece in Claude Debussy’s first book of Préludes for piano is titled La cathédrale engloutie, the Sunken Cathedral. It’s a dreamy, pictorial piece, depicting a mythical Breton city swallowed by the ocean, a kind of Gallic Atlantis. What makes this short piece stick in the memory is not necessarily its vocabulary—of church bells, and watery organs—or its musical vernacular—borrowing pentatonic scales from Javanese gamelan—but its aura of sunkenness: it’s the dunking in a deep, quietly fizzing pool, in which everything moves in a new, collectively dislocated time.
Water, sound, and sunkenness are ideas that the celebrated French experimental composer Eliane Radigue has returned to time and again, especially in the post-millenium creative spurt of this now 93-year-old composer. Waves form the obvious meeting point between these ideas: “We live in a universe filled with waves”, Radigue said in an interview given during the construction of Occam XXV, her piece with Frédéric Blondy: from the tiniest microwaves, to the point where our ears perceive sound, and extending to wavelengths found in the ocean. “We also come into contact with [the ocean] physically, mentally and spiritually”, she added.
As well as working on a perceptual and sensual level, the link between sound and water also informs a key philosophical concept. Just as water flows seeking the path of least resistance, so the guiding mantra of Radigue’s constructions for instrumentalists—that of Occam’s Razor, the so-called parsimonious principle—is that the simplest route available is invariably the best. And so, the selection of pieces heard in this Radigue Weekend chart courses that, on paper, seem fairly simple: from deep to shallow, deep to high, broad to thin, dense to sparse, absent to present to absent again.
Where the challenge comes is in what Radigue calls the “virtuosity of speed”. It’s like Paganini, but in reverse: performers require “a virtuosity of absolute control of the instrument, an extreme, subtle and delicate kind of virtuosity” when performing music that’s achingly restrained. Kate Molleson, in her book Sound Within Sound—a title which itself references Radigue’s sonic burrowing—tells of performers, so engrossed in the progression of one of Radigue’s pieces, that they’ve ‘woken up’ mid-performance, unaware as to how much time has elapsed, where they are, or who has been watching.
Radigue’s music requires a certain virtuosity from the listener too: How to listen to music without event, in a musical space—and a digitised society—in which events are more abundant than ever? One key way into this unusual appreciative realm is by opening not just our ears to sound, but our bodies too. In 1974, Radigue visited her son in New York, and realised that she could no longer put a sound to the movement of her daughter-in-law’s lips. It turned out that she had lived almost fifty years with an unknown hearing impairment, something which she later realised had had a huge impact on how she sought out and shaped these slow-moving sounds. Sound, for Radigue, is something fundamentally bodily, as well as aural. And, when guiding newcomers in how to listen to Radigue, the writer Louise Gray channels Pauline Oliveros, pioneer of Deep Listening. In one of her exercises, Oliveros asks participants to “walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears”. Feel the sound, as much as you hear it.
Opening the weekend is Occam XXV, for organ, premiered by Blondy at Islington’s Union Chapel in 2018. These Occam works are organic forms from their conception. Radigue, who received no formal compositional training, prefers to work with performers individually and in person. Whatever seeds they come up with germinate, and are tended to by Radigue, the constant gardener. Though these works have no score, save for some pictorial guides, this is no free improvisation either. “The difference is that you are following the vision of another person”, trumpeter (and fellow “chevalier d’Occam”—knight of Occam) Nate Woolley writes. “The vision is very clear—the water, the razor, the idea that you never return, that you are always moving forward. These are things that Éliane shapes”.
Over the course of forty-five minutes, Occam XXV rumbles from the deepest reaches of the organ—from the bass sounds you feel more than hear—through to the shrillest edges of perceivable sound. To describe these pieces in reference to structural milestones is futile, though it’s amazing how much these small, quivering forms morph and contort amid a perception that nothing is moving. To listen to Occam XXV is to climb a steep, never-ending mountain facing forward, occasionally allowing yourself an about turn to marvel at just how far you’re come.
The following concert features a selection of works, mostly of around the same length, for violin, harp, and double bass, in various combinations, which continue this steadfast mode of work. All these works begin with thoughts of bodies of water, though the exact sources (and any representations) are kept hidden. In Occam XXI, written with violinist Angharad Davies, a line from Woyzeck springs to mind: “You’re running around like an open razor blade. You might cut someone”. Where other Occam works have a mellower quality, the various sheer overtones of the violin—coupled with the absence of a bass register—give XXI a feeling like stacked sheets of roughly cut glass: related, separate, dangerously sharp when in contact.
OCCAM XVII, with bassist Dominic Lash, features slower, less abrasive material, though these harmonic clouds blacken from their previous light grey shade. The Davies siblings join for River XVII, then split for the longest piece in this concert: the first Occam piece of the series, for solo harp, featuring the unusual technique of bowing the harp with both hands. Two bodies of water flow past each other occasionally meeting in the duo piece River XV, and Delta XIV concludes with the trio altogether. This final piece premiered in 2019; the Delta tributary series is now up to XXIII. For all their steady restraint, Radigue’s riverworks flow ever onwards, and might even be accelerating.
Hugh Morris, 2025
Tickets:
£13
£7 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Under 16s
A brand-new storybook concert, based on the modern classic book series by Benji Davies.
The Storm Whale tells the story of a child, and a whale washed up on the beach, and friendships that will change their lives forever and echo down the generations. These heart-warming tales of friendship, love and courage are brought to life through music specially written to accompany the book by our Children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann.
Perfect for 3– 7-year-olds, this is a fun introduction to a live concert experience, brimming with wonderful music, memorable songs, images from the book and plenty of chances to join in.
“The Storm Whale tells a simple but powerful story about loneliness and the love between a parent and child… The world may be as big and lonely and incomprehensible as the ocean, but still it’s possible to find tremendous, heart-stopping tenderness.” The New York Times on the book
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With many thanks to all our funders, including:
The Sarah Nulty Power of Music Foundation, Gripple Foundation, JG Graves Charitable Trust, Sheffield Town Trust and Wise Music Foundation
Tickets*:
£19 Pay it forward ticket – pay a little more to subsidise other tickets
£16
£12 Supported ticket – solidarity price for anyone feeling the pinch
A history of land rights and protest in folk song and story, the show connects the Norman Conquest and Peasants’ Revolt with current issues like the housing crisis, reparations, climate breakdown and food sovereignty via the Enclosures, English Civil War and Industrial Revolution, drawing a compelling narrative through the history of England in folk song, stories and poems.
Part TED talk, part history lecture, part folk club sing-a-long, part storytelling session… Come and share in these tales as they have been shared for generations.
See http://threeacresandacow.co.uk/ for more information.
“I think about this show all the time. It has totally changed the way I think about colonialism, direct action and English nationalism. Thinking about it today, four years after seeing the show, it’s clear it was a life changing event for me.” Monique, Audience member
“The history lesson I’ve always wanted. Thank you for a very entertaining/life changing evening. I’ll be looking at the land and listening to folk songs in a very different way” Emily, Audience member
*This event does not qualify for any other Music in the Round ticket offers or discounts.
Tickets:
£23
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
MENDELSSOHN Variations concertantes (10’)
CHOPIN Piano Trio (30’)
C SCHUMANN Three Romances for Violin and Piano (10’)
MENDELSSOHN Piano Trio No.2 in C minor (30’)
A stirring evening of romantic favourites performed with customary flair and intimacy by Sheffield favourites, the Leonore Piano Trio. From Chopin’s passionate Trio – his only work for the combination of piano, violin and cello, described by the English composer Charles Willeby as “one of the most perfect… of Chopin’s works” – to Mendelssohn’s lyrical Second Piano Trio, this is music to enchant, captivate and delight.
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This concert is generously sponsored by Alison Batchelor, in memory of Aidan Batchelor
Mendelssohn wrote the Variations concertantes for cello and piano when he was twenty years old. It is one of two pieces that Mendelssohn devoted to his brother Paul, who played cello as a hobby, rather than as a profession like his better-known siblings. Consisting of a theme and 8 following variations, the entire set is lyrical and elegant and showcases a clever thematic dialogue between the cello and the piano. The shifting attention between the two instruments is subtle, with the final variation bringing the piece to a close with an understated ending.
i. Allegro con fuoco
ii. Scherzo
iii. Adagio sostenuto
iv. Finale: Allegretto
Chopin completed his only Piano Trio in 1829, the year in which he graduated from the Warsaw Conservatoire. It was an exciting time for the young composer: in the space of a few months he met Hummel and heard Paganini play. He also gave his début recital in Vienna and, back in Warsaw, gave the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor (which – confusingly – was the first of the two concertos to be written). The Trio opens with a stern series of chords marked ‘risoluto’, and the first movement is dark and impassioned. The Scherzo is more relaxed and benign, while the slow movement is quite surprising, since much of it is a dramatic dialogue between the three instruments that only occasionally blossoms into more extended melodic passages. The finale is very much in the style of the last movements of his piano concertos, written at the same time, but there’s also a ruggedness to the Trio that suggests the influence of Beethoven on the young Chopin. His letters reveal two interesting aspects of this work: firstly, it was composed quite slowly, over a the course of about a year; and second, Chopin contemplated a much more unusual scoring, using a viola instead of a violin, in order to achieve the kind of instrumental colour he was seeking here. As it turned out, he ended up with the traditional piano trio ensemble, but in 1830, a year after it was finished, he was still writing to a friend that is should be published with a viola part as an alternative to the violin, though this didn’t happen. Chopin’s Premier Trio (as it was described on the title page) was first printed by the Leipzig firm of Kistner in 1832 and in Paris and London (as his ‘First Grand Trio’) the following year, with a dedication to Prince Anton Radziwill – a name more often associated with Beethoven.
NIGEL SIMEONE 2010
i. Andante molto
ii. Allegretto, mit zarten Vortrage
iii. Leidenschaftlich schnell
Clara and Robert Schumann moved to Düsseldorf in early 1853, and found a house where Clara could practice and compose without disturbing her husband. She made the most of their improved circumstances and wrote several new pieces during the summer of 1853, including the Three Romances dedicated to Joseph Joachim, a close friend of both Robert and Clara. These character pieces, of which the third is much the longest, are among the last pieces Clara composed: Robert’s mental health took a turn for the worst the following year and he was moved to a sanatorium where Clara was only allowed to visit when it was clear that he was dying in 1856. After his death, she composed almost nothing, concentrating on playing the piano and overseeing Robert’s musical legacy.
Nigel Simeone 2014
i. Allegro energico e fuoco
ii. Andante espressivo
iii. Scherzo. Molto Allegro quasi Presto
iv. Allegro appassionato
The C minor Piano Trio was started in February 1845 and finished in Frankfurt on 30 April. Mendelssohn gave the manuscript to his sister Fanny on her birthday, 14 May, and the published score has a dedication to Louis Spohr. The first performance was given in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 20 December 1845, performed by Ferdinand David, Carl Wittmann and Mendelssohn himself. Mendelssohn’s own view of the work was equivocal: he told Spohr that ‘nothing seems good enough to me, and in fact neither does this trio.’ But this is to underestimate the power and intensity of the work. While it may not have the melodic exuberance of its predecessor (the better-known Piano Trio in D minor), it is dramatic and serious.
In the first movement, the darkly energetic opening theme on the piano accompanied by sustained strings sets the tone for much of what follows, and as a contrast it, Mendelssohn produces a gloriously ardent second theme in E flat major which provides most of the material for the development section, while the close of the movement has a vehemence that recalls Beethoven. The slow movement is a kind of Barcarolle (a favourite Mendelssohn form in solo piano works: there are several ‘Venetian Gondola Songs’ among his Songs without Words). The Scherzo is one of Mendelssohn’s distinctive and very fast duple-time movements, similar to the scherzo in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (composed in 1843). For the finale, Mendelssohn took his inspiration from J.S. Bach whose music he had done so much to revive. It begins as a kind of titanic Gigue, but it’s at the centre of the movement that the Bachian parallels are most striking. Mendelssohn introduces a chorale-like idea on the piano, its second phrase resembling the second line of the chorale known in English-speaking world as ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ (‘Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice’). As a composer with thoroughly Romantic sensibilities, Mendelssohn uses this to drive towards an exultant climax in C major.
© Nigel Simeone
Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
MOZART Sonata in E minor K304 (12’)
R SCHUMANN F-A-E sonata (mvt 2) (3’)
MOZART Sonata in G K301 (15’)
R SCHUMANN Sonata No.1 in A minor Op.105 (17’)
MOZART Sonata in A K305 (15’)
Mozart’s glorious violin sonatas – among the composer’s most charming works – nestle between music by Robert Schumann in this hour-long recital for violin and piano. Violinist Claudia Ajmone-Marsan and pianist Tim Horton promise an hour of exuberant, lyrical, and joyful music from two of the greatest composers of the Classical and Romantic periods.
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Allegro
Tempo di Menuetto
Mozart’s visit to Paris in 1778 – fifteen years after his dazzling first appearance in the city as a child prodigy – was not a success, and the composer was irritated by the apparent indifference of both the musical public and the aristocracy. The highlight of his stay was probably the first performance of the ‘Paris’ Symphony K297 on 18 June. Among the works he composed in Paris was the Violin Sonata in E minor (a key seldom used by Mozart). It has been suggested that the desolate mood of this work – headed “Sonata IV à Paris” in Mozart’s hand on the manuscript – may reflect the tragic illness and death (on 3 July) of Mozart’s mother, who was with him in Paris. While this may be an unduly Romantic interpretation, it is certainly one of Mozart’s bleakest works from this period, and also one of remarkable concentration – in just two movements, the second of which is a melancholy, restrained Minuet in which both players are directed to play sotto voce at several points in the score.
Nigel Simeone © 2012
The F-A-E Sonata was created in 1853, as a gift for violinist Joseph Joachim. Written for violin and piano, and made up of four movements, the sonata was actually composed by 3 individuals; Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahams, and Albert Dietrich, who was a pupil of Schumann’s. The three composers had recently befriended the violinist and challenged Joachim to work out who had composed which movement. Schumann was responsible for movements 2 and 4, the 2nd movement being a short Intermezzo. The Sonata’s movements are all based on the musical notes of F, A and E, and are taken from the first letters of Joachim’s adopted motto “Frei aber einsam”, meaning “free, but lonely”. Schumann would later add two more movements to the ones written for Joachim, to make his Violin Sonata No.3 in A minor. The F-A-E Sonata wasn’t published in its entirety until 1935, 82 years after it was first written.
Allegretto con spirito
Allegro
The G Major Sonata for Violin and Piano is the first of a group of six for piano and violin composed in Mannheim and Paris during the course of the tour undertaken by Mozart and his mother during 1777 and 1778. Mozart seems to have been inspired to write these works after a chance discovery. On October 6, 1777, he wrote a letter to his father about a set of sonatas by the Dresden musician Joseph Schuster (1748–1812): “I send my sister herewith six duets for harpsichord and violin by Schuster, which I have often played here. They are not bad. If I stay on I shall write six myself in the same style, as they are very popular here.” What seems to have struck Mozart about Schuster’s sonatas is the independence of the two instrumental parts – with much more prominent writing for violin than in Mozart’s earlier sonatas for this combination. These six sonatas were published in Paris in as Mozart’s “Opus 1”, dedicated to Maria Elisabeth, Electress of the Palatinate. The first movement is a variant of sonata form (without a significant development of the ideas), and the second suggests a bucolic dance, with a minor-key episode at its centre providing a contrast to the sunnier outer sections.
Nigel Simeone 2013
Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck [With passionate expression]
Allegretto
Lebhaft [Lively]
Schumann often composed in bursts of creative speed, and his Violin Sonata No.1 Op.105 was written in less than a week in September 1851 – starting on his wedding anniversary (12 September) and finishing five days later. Originally he described the work as a ‘Duo for piano and violin’ and it was the first of what Linda Correll Roesner has described as ‘an exceptional group of three chamber works’ written within a couple of months – along with the Piano Trio in G minor Op.110 and the Violin Sonata No.2 Op.121. In his articles, Schumann often wrote about the challenges of musical form for any composer after Beethoven. In this sonata, Schumann uses great economy of means, evident right from the start: the themes of the first movement are based on a limited range of notes, characterised by a falling semitone figure that is heavy with melancholy. The central movement is less anguished – a kind of quirky intermezzo in F major –while the finale is urgent and uncompromising. Near the close, a recollection of the sonata’s opening theme is undermined by the restless, rapid semiquavers that dominate the movement.
The sonata was first played by Joseph von Wasilewski (leader of Schumann’s orchestra in Düsseldorf) and Clara Schumann, at a private run-through on 16 October 1851. The public premiere was given a few months later in Leipzig on 21 March 1852, performed by Ferdinand David with Clara Schumann. Both Clara and Wasilewski recalled playing the piece through for Schumann. According to Clara, ‘I was so restless, I had to try Robert’s new sonata this very day. We played it, and were particularly moved by the very elegiac first movement and the lovely second movement. Only the somewhat less charming third movement caused us some difficulty.’ Wasilewski recalled that ‘on the whole Schumann was satisfied with my performance. Only my playing of the finale failed to please him. We went through it three more times, but Schumann said that he had expected the violin part to have a different effect. I was unable to convey the unyielding, brusque tone of the piece to his satisfaction.’ The finale clearly proved troublesome for both pianist and violinist. Clara’s suggestion that it is ‘less charming’ is puzzling. While the music is indeed brusque (as Wasilewski says) – Schumann resists any hint of easy allure by interrupting its more tender moments with abrupt chords – it is strong and intense, bringing this highly original piece to an impassioned conclusion.
Nigel Simeone ©2014
i. Allegro di molto
ii. Andante grazioso
Sonata in A was inspired by Joseph Schuster’s piano and violin duets, which Mozart first played whilst looking for jobs in Mannheim, Germany. The sonata is made of 2 movements. The first is in sonata form, which follows the structure of introducing a musical idea or ideas, exploring it and then returning to the main themes at the end. It is one of Mozart’s most joyous melodies of all his violin sonatas. The second movement is a theme–and–variation form and completely contrasts with the tone of the first. It has a slower tempo and a much more subdued melody and is followed by six variations on the main theme. Typical of theme-and-variation pieces of the time, the penultimate variation is very stark, and in a minor mode. The set ends with an up-tempo dance and is the only piece of the lot that is in triple metre instead of duple.
£5 tickets (schools only)
To book, please call the box office on 01226 327000
Music in the Round invites your class to take part in a brilliant music project, culminating in a live concert at The Civic, Barnsley.
Paul Rissmann (composer) has created a fantastic piece of music based around the children’s book Giddy Goat (Jamie Rix and Lynne Chapman) which includes songs for your class to learn and join in with in the concert.
Our EY and KS1 practitioners will support you to embed singing and music-making in classroom learning throughout the project, with training, resources, and in-school support newly developed around the Giddy Goat story. The project introduces young children to classical music in a fun and educational setting, including a concert featuring strings, woodwind and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations.
Being a mountain goat is no fun when you are scared of heights! Stand poor Giddy on a mountain ledge and his head starts spinning and his knees turn to jelly. But can he find the fearless goat inside himself in time to rescue little Edmund?
Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging musicians from Ensemble 360, this concert is a great introduction to live music for early years and KS1 children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.