(photo (c) Suzi Corker)
Joanne Chiang, Owen Gunnell, percussion (Zhenyan Li)
Yvonne Howard, Satriya Krisna, City of London Sinfonia / Kenneth Woods (Mahler)
Sinfonia Smith’s Square, London, November 12th, 2024
The City of London Sinfonia’s three-part Patterns of Nature series reached its conclusion at the rebranded Sinfonia Smith Square (formerly St John’s Smith Square) on 12th November with a programme centred on Iain Farrington’s chamber-orchestral arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde. Previous instalments in the series had featured Bartok’s Divertimento and John Adams’ Shaker Loops (‘Shimmering Interference’, September 17th), and a highly diverse programme including pieces by Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Webern amongst others (‘Music from Pole to Pole’, October 15th). The theme of the final concert was “Humanity and Nature”, as elaborated by Dr Helen Anahita Wilson in a brief talk between the two items on the programme, both of which had Chinese connections, whether the composer (Zhenyan Li) or the texts set by Mahler from the hugely influential collection The Chinese Flute.
As originally programmed, the concert should have opened with the Duet for oboe and tam-tam from Du Yun’s controversial 2011 opera Angel’s Bone (for which she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2017). No explanation was given on the night for the substitution of Zhenyan Li’s Conflict for 2 percussionists (2021)—as Joanne Chiang was scheduled to perform in Du Yun’s piece, one presumes some indisposition on the part of the oboist Daniel Bates. It is a shame that Yun’s Duet, a tour de force of sonorities for both instruments, had to be dropped, but Li’s Conflict—vigorously played by Chiang and Owen Gunnell—more than made up for that, a strongly imagined and realised drama in its own right (inspired by elements of Chinese opera), pitting pitched and unpitched instruments from either side of the stage.
(photos (c) Suzi Corker)
The main event, Das Lied von der Erde, itself nearly did not take place due to conductor Kenneth Woods suffering a heart attack a little over a week beforehand. His presence on the podium directing a very fine performance of Mahler’s enormous song-cycle-cum-symphony was an extraordinary feat in the circumstances, and testimony to prompt, excellent treatment from the NHS. Woods is one of the pre-eminent Mahler conductors on the planet, as anyone who has heard (or seen via YouTube) his revelatory performance from the annual MahlerFest in Boulder, Colorado, can testify, so his shaping of Mahler’s six songs (the last of which is almost a symphony in itself) was immaculate. The sixteen performers of the City of London Sinfonia—including arranger Iain Farrington himself on the celesta—provided sensitive and well-nigh perfect accompaniments for the two opera soloists, rising star tenor Satriya Krisna and mezzo-soprano Yvonne Howard, familiar to London audiences for her roles at ENO an the Royal Opera. Das Lied von der Erde is a cycle about balance, first and foremost: the balance between life and death (the composer’s eldest daughter died shortly before he started work on the cycle), between man and the natural world, and even seasonally between Autumn and Spring. As Dr Wilson noted, drinking is a sub-plot throughout the work, particularly in the tenor’s first and third songs, The Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow (where wine becomes both a solace and dependency for life’s tragedies) and The Drunken Man in Spring, the cycle’s ebullient scherzo celebrating the joys of the grape. Krisna relished both aspects in his finely nuanced renditions, singing strongly—as he needed to in the thicker textures of the opening movement. Yvonne Howard provided the greater lyricism as one would expect, coming into her own in the extended final The Farewell, magisterially interpreted by the entire ensemble.
The acoustic of Sinfonia Smith Square fitted Farrington’s arrangement like a glove, filling the hall without overwhelming soloists or audience alike. A memorable concert for so many reasons.