An interview with

What is the ‘Silver Age’ in Russian music?

The term is not so common outside of Russia. It refers to forms of art created in the early-20th century, a period of exploration, even perhaps with an element of shock. It also had to do with the rapidly changing times; there was technological progress and times of political struggle, both externally and internally in the Russian Empire. When we look at music, there was not so much unity of expression. In the Silver Age the differences between the composers’ language grew larger. Tell us about choosing the pieces for the album...

Some I’ve played throughout the last five years or so in concert, and others, like Sarcasms and The Firebird, I actually learned when I was studying in Moscow. Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata was technically written much later than the Silver Age, but he’s still a person of that era, so I wanted to include that. I had always wanted to record the Scriabin Concerto, and with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky. Gergiev played that Concerto himself on tours in the Soviet Union when he was in his 20s, so he knows it well. It’s one of the most difficult pieces to put together and one of the most technically demanding.

It is quite the feat! Were there other challenges?

It took a while to memorise Petrushka, because Stravinsky’s writing is so particular. He always plays with rhythm in unexpected ways; sometimes he might repeat the same thing differently. It takes some time to get that music into your system as a performer, and get it right.

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 4-6; Gerald Barry: Viola Concerto;

The Conquest of Ireland*

Lawrence Power (viola), *Joshua Bloom (bass); Britten Sinfonia/ Thomas Adès

Signum Classics SIGCD 639

139:25 mins (2 discs)

Volume two of Thomas Adès’s Beethoven symphony cycle with added Gerald Barry continues to illuminate both composers. Under Adès, the Britten Sinfonia provide lean, though certainly not mean, performances of Beethoven’s middle three symphonies. There are a few scrappy moments, the wind almost getting ahead of themselves in the Fourth’s slow movement, but generally this is stylishly incisive Beethoven. Barry’s pieces are no mere fillers, so it is a pity that both this set and its predecessor place them at the end of each disc rather than between or before the Beethoven. Nothing can top the end of the Fifth Symphony, but Barry’s relentlessly tub-thumping Viola Concerto would effectively set up the first movement’s revolutionary fervour.

That said, Barry’s The Conquest of Ireland brilliantly splashes cold muddy water over the warm afterglow of the Sixth Symphony’s pastoral idyll. Taking its title from a book by Barry’s 12th-century Welsh namesake Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), The Conquest is a hectic tour de force for singer and ensemble where the profound collides with the absurd. Joshua Bloom is compelling throughout, from the rapid opening volleys where voice is grafted onto bass clarinet via the swift leaps between normal voice and falsetto to the disquieting conclusion. Lawrence Power and the Britten Sinfonia are equally assured in the concerto, though I missed the visual element of a performance. Overall, however, this is a never-less-thanstimulating set. Christopher Dingle PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★