London,

Turnage is source of inspiration

By Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard  09.09.08

Pity the poor composer whose music has to precede Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, which, clocking in at nearly 90 minutes, is liable to make anything that precedes it seem short‑winded. So it proved with Mark‑Anthony Turnage’s Chicago Remains; by no means a miniature, it could not quite establish itself as anything more than a curtain-raiser.

Turnage wrote it for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which, under principal conductor Bernard Haitink, premiered it on its home turf last year. This eagerly anticipated Prom presented the first European performance, and their familiarity with the work’s idiom was plain.

The Windy City provided Turnage with a rich source of inspiration, and Chicago Remains finds the Essex‑born composer at his most “American”. The bluesy end of jazz has always meant a lot to Turnage, so this wasn’t a question of merely writing to order: the chugging rhythms, moaning woodwinds and slightly sour harmonies are typical of Turnage, who, as so often, gave wind instruments prominence over strings. His delight in finding striking sonorities was everywhere apparent.

Busy percussion provided something abrasive to undercut a tendency to sweetness, but it sometimes seemed as if we were listening to an exercise in giving everyone in the orchestra something to do. The downbeat ending showed that Turnage has not lost his ability to surprise and Haitink secured characterful playing but while further performances will no doubt reveal something extra, at first hearing the colouring and rhythmic profile often recalled nothing more edgy than 1940s Broadway.

Haitink is not particularly noted for his commitment to new music but when it comes to Mahler he is a safe pair of hands. Like the Turnage piece, Mahler’s Sixth sometimes veers towards the sentimental but Haitink kept it stern and sturdy. Although the Chicago players can do surface sheen, primal energy mattered more; spaciousness and detail went hand in hand with a wildness we don’t always associate with Haitink.

Nor did he lay on the pathos with a trowel. He followed Mahler’s first thoughts on the order of the movements but his second thoughts on the last movement’s mighty hammer blows (just two, not three). Where some conductors present the piece as Mahler’s fatalistic response to the threat of death, this performance managed a robust, almost Mozartean playfulness. For once the closing moments seemed not so much gloomily resigned as calmly accepting. That is not how everyone hears the piece, but here it made perfect sense.

www.bbc.co.uk/proms.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

Other reviews

[ 1 ] [ 2 ]

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter