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Xenakis Weekend South Bank Centre 2005
QEH has received some attention whilst the refurbishment and alterations to Royal Festival Hall proceed; the riverside walkway outside opens straight into the foyer and bar, and you can now take drinks into the concerts - it is all becoming 'people friendlier'. The planning and publicity of this weekend seems to have attracted many people who'd never be seen at the often sparsely attended contemporary music concerts through the year. Familiarity with most of the music since Xenakis made his mark in UK from the '60s & '70s meant there was no longer the shock of the new. I was pulverised by the keyboard athleticism of the piano gymnasts Rolf Hind (Evryali) and Nicolas Hodges (Eonta) and anxious for their turner-overers; Hind nodding furiously, with his eyes firmly on the scores. Who can tell what proportion of the myriads of notes were the right ones? Messiaen's rebarbative Cantéyodjayã wasn't as much of a contrast as one might have hoped for, nor probably was it intended as such. Feldman's uncommonly concentrated (for him) Wedding Palace proved somnolent in this context, its 'smallest inflections which reveal a whole world of nuance' better appreciated quietly playing it oneself, which I've enjoyed doing. The first half of Arditti Quartet's programme was by contrast rather dour and heavy and after 4½ hours in Xenakis's company (his widow at the round-table discussion earlier particularly good value for her pointed observations which often contradicted the effusive chairman) we didn't quite last the course. Kottos for solo cello (rumoured to be Rohan de Saram's farewell appearance with the Ardittis) was the most striking item in the first half. There has been a succession of changes in the inner parts of the line-up, most recently a new face at the second violin desk, Ashot Sarkissjan's. The chance to revisit Mark Kidel's TV film Something rich and strange in which Xenakis revisited his school on a Greek island (and which could never be commissioned in today's climate, the director lamented) was the most enduring of the weekend's events. The evening concert had Elisabeth Chojnacka (with her mass of red hair) thrashing the harpsichord and one of Xenakis's totally computer-programmed pieces ST/10 - the programme book described a different work, for 10 string players, which was not what we saw and heard..... Eonta with processing brass players reading from music clipped onto their instruments, like marching brass bands, and blaring into Hodges' piano, has lost its novelty value. Akanthos (1977), new to us, was gratefully collected and had Claire Booth blending her phonetic vowels and consonants into a nine-piece London Sinfonietta ensemble; the whole evening steered by Diego Masson to a standing ovation. But it left me too drained to stay for the late-night Electronics despite the reputation of Xenakis's La légende d'Eer (1978), premiered 1978 at the opening of the Pompidou Centre. For comprehensive and sympathetic reviews of this weekend see Richard Whitehouse in Classical Source Listen to some of these concerts on BBC R3 Hear & Now
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