From the Archive: BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Welsh Panorama 2012

The following was first published in Planet Magazine, Issue 209, Spring 2013

BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Welsh Panorama
Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, 23rd November 2012

Mark David Boden: Fuochi Distanti (world premiere)
Andrew Lewis: Eclipse
Huw Watkins: Concertino
Arlene Sierra: Moler (UK premiere)
Guto Puw: Hologram
Joseph Davies: Byzantium (world premiere)
Mark Bowden: tirlun

Conductor: Grant Llewellyn
Violin: Chloë Hanslip

“Why write for the orchestra? For one thing, it’s a very challenging problem”
(Elliott Carter 1908-2012)


The symphony orchestra has proved to be a remarkably resilient cultural institution. Having survived political and artistic turmoil in the 20th Century, and so far fending off further charges of social and musical anachronism in the 21st, it continues to thrive as the perceived ultimate vehicle of collective ‘high-art’ music-making, embodying centuries of Western classical music tradition. However, few contemporary composers get the opportunity to write for orchestra as, ironically - and contrary to most of music history - orchestras these days almost exclusively perform music from the past; commissioning living composers but rarely and, even then, reluctant to take risks with new or unknown names. The dislike has been mutual at times, with influential post-war avant-garde composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez and Cage rejecting the historical baggage of the orchestra to experiment with different kinds of ensemble and new technologies.

Nonetheless, the appetite for orchestral exploration today remains undimmed amongst many composers, and November’s Welsh Panorama showcased BBC NOW’s growing commitment to the new and home-grown by featuring a whopping seven emerging voices both from, and living in, Wales. None of the pieces performed had been specifically commissioned for the concert, but two were past BBC commissions and three had been commissioned by other orchestras, lending substance to the hope that new works might increasingly get the chance for more than the single performance that, alas, so often signals not just premiere but swan-song. Both past and present Resident Composers of BBC NOW were included; a scheme first run in 2006-9 with Guto Puw and continuing with Mark Bowden from 2011, offering close relationship with the orchestra to a promising Welsh composer in the early stages of their career.

One thing united all seven composers beyond a supposed geographical bond, and that was a preoccupation with instrumental colour - indeed, given the sylistic pluralism of today’s musical world, there was a surprising homogeneity of approach to certain elements of orchestral writing in the use of texture, light and shade and climactic gesture. The colours were mostly big and bold, and were splashed about with enormous enthusiasm; the large orchestral forces providing not just canvas and palette but creative energy, with such proliferation of quickly-changing, dazzling ideas as to risk overloaded ears (not to mention tired performers) by the end of the lengthy concert. But that is an issue for the BBC programmers rather than the individual composers, and perhaps in future we can look forward to a less ‘cram-it-all-in’ approach to the unfamiliar - or, better still, greater stylistic contrast in the types of pieces chosen. All credit to the orchestra and conductor Grant Llewellyn, who showed terrific musicianship as well as sheer stamina.

Arguably, the biggest and boldest piece was the most successful in harnessing distinctive colours to create an authentic sound-world; Byzantium, by Joseph Davies (coincidentally, by a whisker, the youngest composer at 25), combined fanfares and military tropes with whistling strings and wonderfully cheesy effects, referencing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring along the way.

But the deeper challenge of orchestral writing is to create shape and structural coherence beyond localised colour and, in this regard, Huw Watkins’s Concertino and Arlene Sierra’s Moler stood out. The Watkins was, in fact, scored for the orchestra’s strings alone plus solo violin (beautifully played  by Chloë Hanslip) and was skillfully and naturally written for the instruments. The Sierra was also assured - and contrastingly extrovert; putting the ‘grind’ into an evocation of nocturnal teeth grinding to generate great rhythmic vitality and a superbly timed climax. Both pieces had clear ideas that had been heard, as well as thought, through.

All four remaining pieces offered good things; Andrew Lewis’s Eclipse had an effective and memorable ending (always tricky to achieve) and, as with Puw’s Hologram, some lovely textural shifts. Mark David Boden’s Fuochi Distanti contained music of glittering delicacy as well as whirling ferment, whilst Bowden’s tirlun displayed huge confidence with the orchestral medium, if relying a little heavily on loud, thick textures.

Interestingly, these four pieces and every other bar the Watkins shared a descriptive - even narrative - approach to orchestral writing, inspired by extra-musical ideas, literature or the natural world: contemporary tone poems perhaps? Watkins, too, utilised a traditional kind of drama by pitting soloist against ensemble - so the audience had many non-abstract reference points if any were needed. In terms of style, it was notable that each composer used some form of modernist, fairly dissonant but nonetheless familiar musical language (heard, say, in composers as disparate as Harrison Birtwistle and Mark-Anthony Turnage), rather than a more uncompromising, experimental language (like that of Helmut Lachenmann or Brian Ferneyhough for instance) - or, indeed, a more approachable, easier-going language such as  made popular for some years by minimalists (like Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt). It will be fascinating to hear what is unearthed by BBC NOW’s forthcoming 'Composition:Wales', with two days of eagerly anticipated free public events including workshops and an evening concert featuring pieces selected from submissions by composers throughout the nation.